Canisius School of Arts and Sciences to Host Krista Schlyer Slideshow Presentation

Continental Divide: Wildlife, People and the Border Wall
Slideshow presentation by Krista Schlyer

August 31, 2017
7pm at Montante Cultural Center

The topic of the border wall between the United States and Mexico continues to be broadly and hotly debated. By now, broad segments of the population have heard widely varying opinions about the wall’s effect on undocumented immigration, international politics, and the drug war.

But what about the wall’s effect on the Sonoran pronghorn antelope herds and the kit fox? On the Mexican gray wolf, the ocelot, the jaguar, and the bighorn sheep? 

In this slideshow presentation Krista Schlyer will discuss her 8-year documentary project about the US-Mexico borderlands, a region stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, which hosts a number of rare ecosystems: one of Arizona’s last free-flowing rivers, the San Pedro; the grasslands of New Mexico, some of the last undeveloped prairies on the continent; a mega-diverse diverse birding area located along the lower Rio Grande River in Texas; and habitat and migration corridors for some of both nations’ most imperiled species. In documenting the changes to the ecosystems and human communities along the border while the wall was being built, Schlyer realized that the impacts of immigration policy on wildlife, on landowners, and on border towns were not fully understood by either policy makers or the general public. This presentation will discuss the natural and human history of the borderlands; the history of border policy; the unthinkable human consequences of border militarization; and the current immigration debate as it pertains to borderlands ecosystems, wildlife, and the people who call this region home.

About Krista Schlyer 

Krista Schlyer is a writer and photographer based in the Washington, DC, area. Her work has appeared internationally in magazines, books and websites including BBC, High Country News, Nature Conservancy, and Audubon. She is a senior fellow in the International League of Conservation Photographers. Her book Continental Divide: Wildlife, People and the Border Wall was released in 2012, and has received numerous awards, including the National Outdoor Book Award and the Sierra Club’s Ansel Adams Award for conservation photography. Schlyer’s newest book, Almost Anywhere, was released in October 2015 by Skyhorse Publishing.