what i will be doing...

My internship title is 'Natural Resource and Border Impacts Monitor.' until this week I didn't fully understand what that meant. Basically I will be finding and hiking illegal trails through the park. Through the data collected the park will be able to see how illegals are impacting the land. I will be using GPS and GIS systems. Which I'm not completely sure how works, but I'm still excited. I will start doing this work Wednesday when my partner gets here.

This past week I have been working with two other interns, Sarah and Ryan, and their project is restoring land that was a ranch within park boundaries. The ranch is no longer because Mr rancher decided to grow a non native plant- marijuana. His operation was discovered a few years ago when him and his girlfriend got into a fight and she was so mad she turned him in to law enforcement that is conveniently located on the park. After they got booted off the area was used as a staging area for the US-Mexico fence, which damaged 11 acres of land. Anyways, we have been removing fence posts, old irrigation hoses, and everything else that was left. They also will be removing invasive plants and collecting seed. I'm grateful that I am a Natural Resource and Border Impacts Monitor Intern and not the Restoration Intern. Nothing against picking up garbage, weeding and collecting seeds for 3 months but hiking and finding illegal trails sounds a lot more intriguing.






PICTURES-
The 1st and 2nd of the pics is of the 18 and 1/2ft US- Mexico fence. I find it impressive even though the illegals still get through (the fence was never completed and there are parts of the fence that get washed out during hurricane and monsoon season (right now its hurricane season). However it has limited traffic to certain extent. The fence runs a little ways up the first peak (smugglers peak) and ends.
The 3rd pic is of a camera that is monitoring activity. Sometimes it freaks me out knowing that the government is watching my every move. I mean what if scratch my nose and they think digging for gold? Actually it's good the camera's there because LE (law enforcement) has told us that there are Mexican spies up in the hills that watch too.
The 4th pic is of a wire that was taken down from a fence on the ranch that me and Sarah rolled. It took 45 minutes. We were proud.
The 5th is of the Huachuca mountains.
The 6th is of the San Madre mountains in Mexico. The line right below them is the fence.