December 3, 2022 protesting the illegal scrap heap container wall in the San Rafael Valley, Coronado National Forest. Photo by Tim Stellar, Arizona Daily Star

There have been moments in my lifetime when the whole world seemed insane. When I saw what was happening at the border, I was stunned. Massive trucks hauling containers driving so fast we were covered in their dust when we got out of our vehicles. Blaring air horns at unnerving decibels racing by us without regard for our presence. They dominated and decimated our national forest with complete impunity. No one was watching but us. No oversight from any federal agency. It didn’t matter to a Florida company our small group was standing there or cared so much for the forest. They simply wanted a piece of the pie as quickly as possible, millions of dollars handed out recklessly by the retiring governor.

I’m glad I can cry and still fight. What can one person do? One person, with an ache in their heart, CAN make a difference. One person, fearful for a community’s safety, as trucks and trailers barrel down beautiful back country roads, can turn a tide. One person can also help others understand that they too can make a difference, and that was exactly what happened. Once we knew we could stop the ecocide, the energy flowed and we were soon joined by many, the subterfuge exposed.

And now the wall is gone in what they prayed would be a neat and tidy process — what they didn’t earn from the wall being cancelled they earned removing the ineffectual, hideous structures. They resisted watch dogs being allowed to witness the de-construction. What were they covering up? We have photos, videos, and memories, and will not forget. It's in our cells now. As the poet, Logan Phillips, shared with us around a moonlit campfire at Camp Ocelot, the San Raphael Valley is "the landscape of my soul."

Bear, mountain lion, ocelot, jaguar, mule deer, bluebirds, and many other sentient beings can now walk, fly and be themselves again. Still, we lost hundreds of trees providing shelter, food, air and beauty to the landscape. Waterways permanently changed and damaged. This loss is something one cannot find words for — how they could savagely blade the trees down with bulldozers then heaped callously in hideous piles like they hardly mattered to anyone or anything?

Ducey committed crimes against nature and his constituents, in a brazenly illegal seizure of the Coronado National Forest. Never forget what happened here.

Photo of Lone Protestor atop the container wall by Mikal Jakubal, December 2022