Good Neighbor Environmental Board Report

US-Mexico Border Environment Air Quality and Transportation & Cultural and Natural Resources Report

Public education about the value of preserving cultural resources along the US-Mexico border is a key recommendation in the latest report from a Presidential advisory committee called the Good Neighbor Environmental Board, an independent federal advisory committee. Its mission is to advise the President and Congress of the United States on good neighbor practices along the U.S. border with Mexico. Its recommendations are focused on environmental infrastructure needs within the U.S. states contiguous to Mexico.

If more members of the public understood and respected cultural resources, greater self-restraint would be exercised, land-holding agencies would find it easier to justify the expenditures for preservation activities, and law-enforcement and judicial agencies would be more willing to use existing tools such as antiquities laws.  The report is called US-Mexico Border Environment Air Quality and Transportation & Cultural and Natural Resources.

Protecting cultural resources and protecting natural resources often go hand in hand, says the Board. The Tohono O’Odham tribe, for example, honors the sacred spring on historic tribal land at Quitovac, Mexico, as well as the sacred mountain of Baboquivari Peak, in Southern Arizona.

For more information on the report or the Board, go to www.epa.gov/ocem/gneb