As Chris continues his Southwest Tour after the Chihuahuan Desert Conference in El Paso, the Supreme Court of the United States deals a blow to efforts to protect Big Bend from a needless border wall. We revisit an earlier discussion with Laiken Jordahl of the Center for Biological Diversity, who has been working with locals to oppose the destructive project. Chris and Laiken discuss:

• Why ranchers, river guides, business owners, conservationists, and conservative local officials have united against the wall.
• Threats to river access, private property, agriculture, recreation, and the region’s tourism economy.
• Cross-border connections: families, firefighting crews, conservation work, and wildlife moving between Mexico and Texas.
• How waivers of environmental and cultural protection laws remove safeguards for border wall construction.
• The ecological consequences of separating desert wildlife from the Rio Grande.
• Community organizing in Terlingua and neighboring towns, including the No Big Bend Wall Coalition.

Useful Links

• No Big Bend Wall Coalition — Community campaign information, updates, and resources for affected landowners. Take action here.
• Support the coalition — Donation page through the El Paso Community Foundation, supporting organizing and outreach.
• Supreme Court ruling, November 9, 2026 — The Court’s opinion allowing construction to resume while further review is sought.
• Texas Tribune coverage of the ruling — Accessible reporting on the decision, the lawsuit, and local opposition.
• 132 organizations and businesses urge Congress to protect Big Bend — The March 2026 letter discussed in the interview, requesting restrictions on federal funding for wall construction.
• Environmental protections waived for Big Bend construction — Center for Biological Diversity background on the June waivers and their implications for the parks and river.
• Black bears return to Big Bend — National Park Service account of bears recolonizing the Chisos Mountains from Mexico, illustrating the importance of cross-border habitat connections.
• Los Diablos Fire Crew — National Park Service history of the Mexican firefighting crew and its longstanding cooperation with Big Bend.

Episode image courtesy BaseCamp Terlingua.

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Blackbrush, Coleogyne ramosissima, is easy to overlook. Its tiny, dark leaves and gray stems can make a stretch of landscape look at best boring, at worst funereal. But this rose family plant’s low, dense canopy helps shape desert plant communities, and gives desert animals an important food source. Nurse plants shelter vulnerable seedlings from heat, drying winds, and hungry animals. Blackbrush may well be the most important nurse plant for Joshua trees.

Long-lived adults, episodic seed production, rodent seed caches, and suppressed young plants help blackbrush stands persist. But blackbrush isn’t well adapted to what North America’s hot deserts have become. Research in the Panamint Mountains shows why rebuilding a mature desert shrub community can take far longer than replacing its individual plants.

Protecting existing blackbrush matters as warming and disturbance make natural recovery harder.

Also, you still have a few days left to apply for our Fellowship for Desert Reporting, viewable at https://thedamn.org/fellowship.

Sources cited, plus extras:

• Webb, R. H., Steiger, J. W., & Turner, R. M. (1987). Dynamics of Mojave Desert Shrub Assemblages in the Panamint Mountains, California. Ecology, 68(3), 478–490. The exceptionally slow recovery of blackbrush communities after disturbance, including the climatic and geomorphic stability quotation. Free PDF. pubs.usgs.gov
• Hunter, K. L., & McAuliffe, J. R. (1994). Elevational Shifts of Coleogyne ramossissima in the Mojave Desert during the Little Ice Age. Quaternary Research, 42(2), 216–221. Packrat midden evidence for blackbrush expansion at the southern Nevada study site during the Little Ice Age. The extra “s” in ramossissima appears in the published title. Cambridge Core
• Meyer, S. E. (2023). Factors Regulating Population Stand Structure in Blackbrush (Coleogyne ramosissima: Rosaceae), a Masting North American Desert Shrub. Diversity, 15(5), 619. Stand structure, episodic seed crops, rodent dispersal, and banks of suppressed young plants within adult crowns. mdpi.com
• Pendleton, B. K., & Meyer, S. E. (2004). Habitat-correlated variation in blackbrush (Coleogyne ramosissima: Rosaceae) seed germination response. Journal of Arid Environments, 59(2), 229–243. Differences among populations in seed chilling requirements and germination responses. . ScienceDirect
• Jones, L. C., Schwinning, S., & Esque, T. C. (2014). Seedling ecology and restoration of blackbrush (Coleogyne ramosissima) in the Mojave Desert, United States. Restoration Ecology, 22(5), 692–700. Seedling establishment, herbivory, and how nurse-plant effects change with elevation and environmental stress.

Become a desert defender!: https://90milesfromneedles.com/donate

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