The 200-year-old cottonwood near the US-Mexico border, known as “Grandma,” was destroyed to make way for Donald Trump’s border wall — despite the sustained efforts of protesters who tried to save it, UNN reports, citing The Guardian.
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At the end of July, land defenders began a protest by taking up residence in a tree in the abandoned town of Lochiel, Arizona; they took turns staying on a platform installed high in the canopy. The group remained there for more than 70 days.
Then, at dawn on Monday, more than 80 federal agents surrounded the protesters’ camp, located on private property; they made arrests and prevented people from approaching the cottonwood. Videos and photos on social media, as well as eyewitness accounts, show that agents, who had risen in a steel basket on a telescopic lift, forcibly removed a person from the platform in the tree. Other participants in the protest were shoved and knocked to the ground as they tried to reach the tree to prevent its destruction.
After that, contractors from Fisher Sand & Gravel, the company building this section of the wall, brought down the tree with an excavator: it split and fell to the ground. The land defenders shouted, cried and hurled accusations at the federal agents.
“Seeing this is heartbreaking,” said Eric Meza, coordinator of the Borderlands project at the Sierra Club, who had fought for months to save the trees, beginning with a series of letters to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
“This tree brought many people together,” he said. Now, Meza added, “the community is responding with outrage. People are furious.”
The process of felling the cottonwood was filmed by a team from the far-right political organization Turning Point USA; they appeared to be accompanying the Border Patrol and had unrestricted access to the closed public road.
One of the land defenders climbed another ancient cottonwood that was growing directly on the border with Mexico. On Thursday, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers and Mexican police — the latter had already been at the site for several days and were openly cooperating with US authorities — dismantled the activist’s platform while they were in the tree and also confiscated food and water supplies. Alex Chubbott, an environmental activist who had periodically stayed at the camp for more than a month, reported this.
Late Friday evening, the activist climbed down from the tree on his own after going several days without receiving new supplies.
The forces involved in the operation included Border Patrol officers (a CBP unit) and the BORTAC special operations tactical team, whose officially stated mission is “responding to terrorist threats.”
The tree-sit protest began shortly after contractors felled and destroyed three other old cottonwoods nearby on July 27.
Two 30-foot-high walls (about 9 meters) are being built in this area — the San Rafael Valley, a remote and once-idyllic highland prairie where the film “Oklahoma!” was shot. This valley, along with the Patagonia and Huachuca Mountains rising on either side of it, forms one of the most important regional wildlife corridors between the US and Mexico. It provides migration routes for animals such as jaguars, ocelots and bears, and in recent years even beavers and porcupines.
Government contractors have already completed construction of 88 miles (140 km) of secondary wall — an additional 30-foot-high barrier installed some distance from the main wall of the same height. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), construction is continuing on another 444 miles of secondary wall (a significant portion of it in Arizona), using billions of dollars allocated under Trump’s initiative, which he called “one big beautiful bill.”
Protesters say construction in this area is moving at a rapid pace and continuing around the clock. In recent days, Fisher Sand & Gravel completed construction of a secondary wall along the private-property section where the camp is located (including the site where a tree stood); the work involved installing 30-foot steel panels into a trench filled with rebar and concrete. These trees, which depend on a regular supply of groundwater, are a distinctive feature of riparian forests, an endangered ecotype found throughout Arizona and the Southwest, said Russ McSpadden, an advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. The ecological significance of these trees is one of the driving factors behind the land defenders’ efforts.
Water use for wall construction has depleted wells in the Southwest, threatening natural features such as the Quitobaquito Springs. U.S. Customs and Border Protection does not disclose how much water is being used for the current construction, but in 2008 it estimated that a smaller wall nearby could use up to 710,00 gallons per mile to build; the current project is likely consuming more because it is larger.
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Since Monday, dozens of land defenders have been arrested; many of them for entering the road between private property and the border, which federal authorities ordered closed in late September because of wall construction. Every morning, protesters pray on this road, near the tree.
According to Chabbott, some of those detained were beaten, resulting in bruises and facial injuries.
Several other people tried to stop or slow construction using nonviolent resistance methods; in particular, on August 7, one woman chained herself to a concrete mixer, as shown in videos posted on social media.
According to witnesses and videos on social media, agents used tear gas against the protester, knocked her to the ground, and forcibly twisted her limbs, causing her pain.
The truck was later driven away while the land defender was still chained to it; later that evening, she was freed by being detached from the vehicle. According to information provided by authorities to the activists’ lawyers, she is currently in custody.
Julia Butterfly Hill, who lived for two years in the late 1990s in a redwood tree in Humboldt County, California, said she was shocked by the border agents’ mistreatment of the woman, which she saw in a livestream.
The land defender’s courage and her commitment to nonviolent resistance in the face of brutality "moved me to tears," Butterfly Hill said. "She is a true hero."
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) did not respond to a request for comment about this and other incidents, but the agency has previously said that walls in such areas would help combat illegal immigration. Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway, who also did not respond to a request for comment for this article, previously said that constructing a wall in this area was pointless because no significant instances of illegal activity had been recorded in the remote valley. Fisher Sand & Gravel did not respond to a request for comment. During a news conference on October 8, Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva, who represents the district, said she was deeply saddened by the loss of the “matriarch” trees and announced her intention to introduce a bill that would strip the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of the authority to disregard any laws during the construction of border infrastructure.
The tree-sit began shortly after contractors cut down and destroyed two other ancient cottonwood trees nearby on July 27.
By cutting down the trees, contractors and federal agents "are trying to break us, but we have not been broken," said Kate Scott, one of the action’s leaders. "We are starting a movement, and we are not going anywhere. We have put down roots here, just like these matriarch trees."