WILDERNESS AREAS FACE A NEW THREAT

Today's Topic -- The Environment

EL PINACATE BIOSPHERE RESERVE, Mexico - Drug traffickers scar volcanic
desert with illicit runways, while law enforcement officials chase them
through once-tranquil parks.

Thousands of migrants traipse across delicate back-country areas -- sending
campers fleeing to ranger stations, fearful of crowds passing their tents
in the night.

Wilderness areas on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border are taking a
beating from an onslaught of migrants, drug traffickers and law-enforcement
officials, a new study says.

Some national treasures in both countries have been lost forever.

Few parks have taken a greater toll than the U.N.-designated biosphere
reserve El Pinacate and Arizona's adjoining Organ Pipe Cactus National
Monument.

Last year, officials caught 200,000 migrants and confiscated 700,000 pounds
of drugs in Organ Pipe alone.

Last month, Pinacate and Organ Pipe officials completed the border's first
environmental impact studies of illegal activities.

The findings were eye-opening: It could take 20 years to recover from the
damage, while some archaeological sites are gone forever.

"Organ Pipe National Monument is becoming Organ Pipe National Catastrophe,"
said Randall Rasmussen, program manager of the non-profit National Parks
Conservation Association.

On the Mexican side, migrants and drug traffic hit just as Pinacate gained
federal protection status for its 1.9 million acres in 1993.

Officials estimate smugglers drove 5,000 cars through protected wilderness
last year alone.

Towering Sahuaro cacti, hundreds of years old, have been carved by migrants
with the names of Mexican villages.

People trampling prehistoric stone sleeping circles -- created 10,000 years
ago by Amerindians on their salt trail -- have destroyed them.

On a recent afternoon in Organ Pipe, discarded water bottles, backpacks,
hot-sauce containers and Spanish-language comic books littered the ground
around a sprawling Ironwood tree, estimated to be 1,000 years old.

A few miles away, sitting along U.S. Highway 85, Paolo Solis and his friend
gave up and flagged down the Border Patrol after spending 12 hours walking
in 100-degree heat. They were surrounded by four water jugs -- only a
swallow remained.

"We didn't know this was a national park," the 31-year-old farm worker from
Ciudad Obregon said. "We just heard this was the easiest place to cross,
but it's not. You suffer a lot. Thank God we didn't run out of water."

The area's harsh conditions have taken the lives of migrants, who flooded
the region after the Border Patrol increased its presence along more
populated spots in 1993.

Last year, eight bodies were found in Organ Pipe and 14 other people passed
through the park before dying in neighboring Cabeza Prieta National
Wildlife Refuge.

In Pinacate, Mexican soldiers have destroyed archaeological areas --
including one with a 10,000-year-old drawing on it -- mistaking them for
illicit runways, Pinacate Park Director Carlos Castillo said.

In addition, the army has dug deep trenches to destroy 19 clandestine
airstrips -- marring hundreds of acres of volcanic desert that took 4
million years to form. The soldiers' markings could remain for 100 years.

Both parks are home to rare animals.

The cactus pygmy owl has abandoned one of its few nesting areas in Organ
Pipe since smuggling took off in the area.

The endangered Sonoran pronghorn antelope population has shrunk by 68
animals since 1993.

Mexico has an estimated 346 pronghorn antelopes, while 140 remain in the
United States, according to the last census.

U.S. Border Patrol traffic can disturb the animals, said Bill Wellman,
director of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.

Environmentalists also fear a barbed-wire fence along the border could be
dividing the gene pool, further threatening the species already under
stress from a decade-long drought.

They plan to remove the barbs from the wire this year to allow the animals
to cross.

But that might not be enough.

"With all this illegal activity and the law enforcement to stop it putting
another stress on them, we may start losing more animals," Wellman said.

Organ Pipe administrators need funding to fence sensitive areas of the
330,690-acre park, let migrants know they are crossing national parks and
add more rangers to keep smugglers away.

In Pinacate, officials are working with the army to find other ways to
destroy airstrips and minimize the damage left by the drug traffickers.

But it's not easy. Smugglers have threatened rangers in both parks, and law
enforcement officials often have shrugged off their complaints in the face
of more immediate security concerns.

"We don't have the answers, and it's probably beyond us," Wellman said.
"But what we want to do is make this park uncomfortable for smugglers so
they'll go someplace else."

Then, Wellman said, officials hope to "get things back as close as we can
to their natural conditions" in areas considered only a few years ago to be
largely untouched by humans.