Maxie Adler holds her hands to the side of her face and grins, staring at the cuttings with baby sprouts from elder cottonwoods — known as grandmother and abuela — that once stood strong at the border in Lochiel. She reaches down to carefully cradle a small planter. Skinny stems now at a Tucson garden burst with budding bright green leaves.
The cuttings are from centuries-old cottonwood trees that lived along the U.S.-México border — in a remote area in the San Rafael Valley about 25 miles east of Nogales — until about a month ago. Grandmother was rooted in Arizona. Abuela was rooted in Sonora.
In late July, Department of Homeland Security contractors cut down three of four cottonwoods that lined the easement road on the U.S. side to make way for two border walls.
For 71 days, environmental activists from across the U.S. took turns living in the remaining tree rooted in the desert borderlands to spare the grandmother cottonwood from destruction.
The fourth and final tree saw the same felled fate the morning of Oct. 5. That’s when masked, armed Border Patrol agents raided a protest camp so contractors could chop down the last standing cottonwood tree — grandmother — in Lochiel. Contractors cut Abuela down days later.
Pieces of the cottonwood trees gathered by two Southern Arizona environmental advocates now live on at Tohono Chul Sonoran Botanic Garden, where Jack Dash, gardens and facilities manager, has been tending to their propagation. In late October, the grandmother tree cuttings stood at about barely four inches.
When Maxie visits the garden, she also checks on separate cottonwood cuttings she saved in Lochiel in July. Those stems are already about a foot tall, with healthy, lime-green leaves.
After seeing destruction of the cottonwoods in Lochiel, and the many other ways border wall construction is threatening plants and the wildlife that roam the region, environmental advocates are finding ways to hold space for environmental grief. They want to honor ancient cottonwoods that had survived for generations. They’re also finding community and healing in collective grief, as they continue to resist environmental destruction.
When Maxie first heard that three elder cottonwood trees had been cut down, she had to do something. The next morning, she drove to Lochiel. She walked toward one of the felled cottonwoods lying horizontally.
She saw “bursts of new growth and leaves still present, signs of life and health,” she says. Maxie wrapped her arms around the giant toppled tree.
“As I hugged the trunk of the tree, I remember the ache in my heart almost felt good,” Maxie says. “Like a reminder that my heart is still alive and present with what’s happening.”
The scene reminded her of when she saw chopped up saguaros on the desert floor in 2019 at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. DHS contractors — under the first Trump administration — razed the protected habitat for border construction. Maxie has seen growing environmental destruction along the borderlands as the federal government continues to invest billions of taxpayer dollars to build the border wall.
“I think it’s fair that our bodies start to numb, but it’s also scary to feel the ways in which we are called towards apathy,” she says. “These ancient cottonwood trees reminded me to be brave, to witness, and to grieve and to hope again.”
She walked to the grandmother tree and sat in her shade.
Before leaving Lochiel that day, she took cuttings from the chopped trees and handed them over to “the person I trust most in the world with plants,” her friend Jack.
On Oct. 5, Erick Meza, border program coordinator with the Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter, went to Lochiel to support protesters in the aftermath of that morning’s raid. He had visited Lochiel several times, bringing supplies and food to the protest camp.
After spending that night in Lochiel, Meza also saved cuttings from the final grandmother tree and brought them to Jack. He left some cuttings for others who said they would take them to Borderlands Nursery and Seed, a native plant nursery in Patagonia, closer to their original home.
“That was just kind of like a really good feeling of hope, that the trees wouldn’t necessarily die, but they will transform,” Erick says. “And their same essence and spirit that gave us hope will continue.”
A final batch of cuttings came from the “abuela” cottonwood, Jack says, a fifth tree that contractors cut down on the México side.
An ofrenda for a grandmother in downtown Tucson
Nearly nine miles south of the garden’s growing cottonwood cuttings, at Presidio San Agustín del Tucsón Museum in downtown, three women are setting up an ofrenda, or an altar, to honor the grandmother cottonwood tree. On a recent Thursday morning, Emily Burns, Meagan Bethel and Tika Arnold, from Sky Island Alliance, are fixing final details for the altar.
The museum hosts ofrendas from community groups every year for Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, a traditional Mexican holiday when people honor their loved ones and ancestors.
Emily, Meagan and Tika work in tandem. They place a cardboard cutout depicting the border wall toward the back of the table. Then, they pick up an artist’s replica of the grandmother cottonwood tree born and grown to old age on the border. Crafted of chicken wire and papier mache, with bright green leaves made of cardstock. They place the tree at the center of the table.
After evaluating the setup, they move the border wall to the right, and move the tree left, off-center, so that it’s illuminated by a spotlight directly above.
They hang a banner on the tree with photos of wildlife. It’s a tribute to the banners environmental protesters from across the country — fighting to save a life — wrapped around the cottonwoods in Lochiel. Next to the tree in the ofrenda are framed photos of the cottonwoods and plants that stood in Lochiel for hundreds of years.
“I think we’re getting down to the final touches,” Emily tells the two women.”The flowers look nice, I like the flowers behind grandmother.”
The three women stand at a distance, analyzing and admiring their work.
“She’s ready to zhuzh,” Tika says. Meagan, Sky Island’s wildlife specialist, approaches the ofrenda to make small, finishing adjustments.
“Grief is a way back into the world”
Emily has worked in the environmental protection space for more than 15 years. She started to realize the toll that environmental destruction was having on her mental and physical health, she says.
Emily recognized she would not be able to continue the work if she didn’t address the grief she was holding. So she started journaling, meditating and learning breathwork to cope. She’s still learning ways to hold both grief and joy.
“It’s okay to look outside and be inspired by seeing an amazing bird flying through your garden,” Emily says. “To be so happy when it rains and to feel that positive energy that is restorative for us, and at the same time, know that in many instances things are not going the way we want.”
Now, Emily is helping make space for others to work through environmental grief together. On Oct. 15, Sky Island Alliance hosted a webinar: “Tending Environmental Grief: Being with heartbreak and creating resilience together.”
More than 100 people registered, and more than 50 attended the webinar, led by Maria Renee, an artist, environmental conservationist and grief consultant. Grieving in community becomes a way for people to connect with one another, Renee told Arizona Luminaria.
“Grief is a way back into the world. It’s a way back into connection,” she says. “And if we are not connected with each other and with the land, it’s harder for us to be resilient to face whatever is coming next.”
As part of its environmental grief series, Sky Island Alliance is inviting people to participate in practices to help them work through those emotions. The first exercise invites people to go to their favorite landscape that may bring up a sense of grief. Observe and create a response to what they witness, whether it’s writing a poem, drawing or anything else that comes to mind.
“We are not going to give way to hopelessness”
At Tohono Chul, Maxie sees the cottonwood cuttings for the first time since she dropped them off in July.
“Wow, they’ve grown so much,” she says, smiling down at the 32 sprouts in front of her, all lined on a shelf in an outdoor propagation garden.
“This is that first round. We figured, until it gets cold, leave them out and let them get some real sunshine,” Jack tells her. “And they’ve been growing really, really quickly, just starting to put roots out.”
He picks up a pot. Flips it upside down. Holding the plant carefully, he shows Maxie the roots.
Inside a greenhouse, the grandmother’s and abuela’s cuttings are much smaller, growing strong in a climate-controlled environment. Away from their homeland 90 miles south where they grew free.
For Maxie, deciding to propagate the ancient cottonwoods was her way of tending to the future she and others imagine. “Hope is an action,” one that requires people to be brave, she says.
“Part of honoring these ancient cottonwood trees, and the over 200 years that they have witnessed, is by believing that their babies, their offspring, their genetics, are all worthy of the next 200 plus years,” she says.
Jack worries that environmental grief could turn into hopelessness or apathy, as the pain becomes so much, the problem so complex, that people just want to “callous the wound.”
“What I like about the cuttings is that it’s a form of hope,” Jack says. “It’s a way to continue loving these individual trees and the landscape that they’ve evolved in. It’s an act that says that we are not going to give way to hopelessness.”
At the Día de los Muertos ofrenda, people are paying their respects to the ancient cottonwoods. At the garden, what’s left of the trees grows — slowly – again. Once they’ve grown enough to be replanted, Maxie wants to take some of the elders home. Plant them in the San Rafael Valley that they once lived in for generations — where the borderlands people who cared for them before, can care for them again.
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