As construction of the 30-foot-high steel bollard border wall system continues through the San Rafael Valley, more activists and journalists are showing up to protest or document activity.
One participant in the latter is John Darwin Kurc, who collaborated on the documentary American Scar that can be viewed HERE. His passion to “capture the moment” has brought him to Lochiel with camera and drones.
“I’m not going anywhere,” said Kruc, whose perseverance documenting environmental disruptions caused by the border wall has extended from a three-week visit to the desert from his home in Charleston, S.C., to now five years in the southwest.
Kate Scott, too, isn’t going anywhere soon. The co-founder of the Madrean Archipelago Wildlife Center, she has been at the border in Lochiel for seven weeks now. She is unwavering in her resolve to save the last of four grandmother cottonwood trees there.
Heavy equipment pushes earth and downed vegetation on Sunday from the road being created to accommodate the double border walls along the U.S./Mexico border in Lochiel. (Photos by Dave Lumia) 
Activists hold an impromptu meeting Sunday at the base of the “grandmother” cottonwood being occupied by a tree sitter. (Photos by Dave Lumia) 
A scattering of tents among the grasslands shows the growth of the support community for Lochiel tree-sitting protest. (Photos by Dave Lumia)
“We are going to give it everything we have,” Scott said. “A double wall through Lochiel makes no sense. It destroys everything. Fifty feet from another wall? Come on. I’m an engineer. I went to engineering school. They have to have an easement on either side. How are they going to build this without asking (private landowners) for land?”
At grandmother central, a few hundred yards from the former border-crossing U.S. Customs House, an activist sits in the 200-plus year-old cottonwood as heavy equipment rattles past it. A bucket-and-rope system has been established to transport food up to the makeshift treehouse and trash down to the makeshift community. At the base of the tree, a community meeting space has been set up with for sleeping accommodations — aka tents scattered in the high grassland below. Walkie-talkies are used to communicate needs from the Customs House, Command Center One, to the Tree Camp.
“We want to see the D.C. people here,” Scott said. “Not these minions from Tucson. I think we are in a good spot to say, ‘full stop’.”