This desert oasis is a biological wonderland. Trump’s border wall threatens to destroy it

Quitobaquito Springs, in Organ Pipe Cactus national monument, provides one of the only standing bodies of water for hundreds of miles. Photograph: Mark Newman/Getty Images

Quitobaquito Springs in south-west Arizona has been called a biological wonderland with few equals.

The springs are an oasis in the vast Sonoran desert along the US-Mexico border, held sacred by the O’odham people, who call it A’al Vaipia. Here, water flows out of an aquifer at the bottom of a hill, runs along a short concrete channel and collects in a pond.