WHY A SANCTUARY?

Our precious thornscrub forest in Deep South Texas is under constant attack by militarization and industrialization which always leads to mass deforestation. Today, only 1.5% of our natural landscape remains. Our humble work begins within 10 acres of degraded land in the Rio Grande Valley (or Delta) where the Rio Grande feeds into the Gulf of Mexico and where the invasive US/MX border wall begins.

If left to thrive, our native Thornbrush is home to over 1,000 different plants, 500 birds, 300 butterflies, and 45 at-risk species. We strive to recreate our native landscape on 10 acres to provide refuge to these plants, animals, and insects, as many of these relatives have increasingly less access to their natural habitat and foods. 

We aim to restore our lands through Indigenous sustainable practices such as targeted grazing, soil remediation with cactus preservation and natural compost, and the reintroduction of native plants that cohabitate and help each other thrive. We hope to restore ancient foodways that humans, animals, and insects depend on through the restoration of tunales (cacti food forests) – a sub-ecosystem within thornscrub forests. 

Our community historically has and continues to face a series of issues related to environmental injustices. The land is in Hidalgo County, the most obese county in Texas where few people have access to greenspaces and our traditional ways of eating. Our primary sources of food and health, our thornscrub and tunales, have been ripped from their roots, privatized, or made inaccessible. Restoring our thornscrub forest and foodways in our increasingly urbanized, impoverished, under-represented, and marginalized border communities creates an opportunity for reconnection to the land and our traditional ways. Our lands have demonstrated resilience despite their exploitation, and we model our efforts in restoration after this resilience.

As people from the border, our identities and environments are constantly subjected to the militarization of the land. With our lands left divided by man-made walls and mass deforestation, our human and animal relatives are unable to pass through ancient migration routes. Post-colonization, our thornscrub forest began to be privatized and cleared for ranching, monoculture, fossil fuel extraction, and urban infrastructure.

Our 10 acres have suffered soil health degradation due to drilling and oil fracking. There is also reduced biodiversity from the monoculture of invasive grasses for livestock feed. The effects of privatization and exploitation are widespread throughout our community, with over 98% of our land converted into agricultural, industrial, and urbanized developments.

While this land is tattered and degraded, with care and stewardship, it is possible to mend and revive it.

As we work to restore the Tamaulipan thornscrub forest, we reconnect to the lands we are originally from. We are reminded of the naturally occurring permaculture that thrives in our native food forests. We become once again, a part of nature’s cycles. These lands, like our own indigenous bodies, have been changed, modified, and forced into a specific use or agenda. Tierra Roja Sanctuario is a symbol of reclamation of what has either been forever altered or destroyed – our land, waters, animals, lifeways, and connections. 

Our restoration efforts are not possible without reciprocity and Indigenous stewardship of the land. Our native plants, roots, and soils have sacred mutual relationships that must be re-learned and implemented. Human existence mimics the cyclical nature of the natural world. Any intervention we must now take is rooted in understanding that we have a responsibility to undo what has been done to break these natural cycles and in turn, disrupt the natural flow of these symbiotic relationships. 

Rewilding the Rio Grande Delta benefits all beings existing or migrating through this delicate landscape. Various ecosystems, the great river, and the great ocean, all meet here. It is a crossroads of migration routes, a sacred place that many beings depend on. It is part of the mass monarch migrations, home to four distinct bird migration routes, and the two different climate zones that create a natural migratory path for many birds seeking rest and refuge. The Chihuahuan Desert calmly rests to the West and the Gulf of Mexico roars to the East. It is important for us, as people native to this land, to protect all it has to offer and in turn combat the industries that strip it dry of its medicines.

While many of our native relatives are struggling with poverty and various forms of socio-political oppression - we believe that Tierra Roja Sanctuario is unique in the opportunities that it creates not only for the land, animals, and waters of this region - but also for the human life that has been deeply affected by the same extractive and oppressive forces.