Academics compared the European Union’s border fences to the Soviet Union’s Iron Curtain in a study published Wednesday that found fences and walls devastate the environment.
Europe’s refugee crisis has led to the creation of between 25,000 and 30,000 kilometers of wire fencing and walls around the borders of many countries in Eastern Europe, which harms wildlife and could even lead to extinctions, the study found.
“This is killing wildlife that becomes entangled and acts as a barrier to wildlife movement, cutting off species from important seasonal habitats,” the study’s press release said. “The long-term consequences are a lower viability of wildlife populations, and a reduction in their ability to respond to climate change. This situation forces a re-think of transboundary conservation strategies.”
The study found that the best way of alleviating the environmental impact was to simply not fence some areas and calls for an “open public debate about border fences to ensure that the decisions to build them are based on a full consideration of the costs.”
The study did not consider the impacts of similar border fences in the Middle East and could lead to redoubled green criticisms of presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall along the Mexican border. The study was published in the peer-reviewed Public Library of Science and supported by the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research.
Immigration and the refugee crisis are hugely controversial in environmentalists circles, many of which are concerned that the current immigration policies of the U.S. and Europe are damaging the environment by letting too many people in.
“Population growth puts pressure on the environment, accelerates deforestation and increases our dependence on fossil fuels,” Progressives for Immigration Reform claimed in its 2014 Earth Day message. “Today, 80 percent of our population growth is spurred by immigration. While conservation is important, efforts to reduce our environmental impact must include stabilizing immigration.”
The Sierra Club previously had a similar message to Progressives for Immigration Reform and even claimed that “… all of our environmental successes may be short-lived if they do not include efforts to address population growth.” Until 1996, the Club’s official policy was that both birth rates and immigration levels needed to sharply decline to stabilize the American population as rapidly as possible, but the policy was changed as the organization became increasingly tied to left wing politics.
The Sierra Club’s shift caused the group to splinter and lose members over the question of immigration several times before finally announcing in 2013 that it supports a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens. Now, the organization’s only position on population reduction is its promotion of “voluntary family planning and reproductive health services.”
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