After reading the piece in the Tucson Weekly regarding the Tumacacori Highlands Wilderness legislation ("Nature Vs. Security," May 1), my reaction was surprise at the one-sided presentation and the paucity of information actually given in the article. The author was apparently happy to just sit down with opponents of the plan and put all his faith in their remarks. The worthiness of the area as wilderness was not examined.
I have lived in the Tumacacori/Tubac area for the past 33 years and had a real estate business in Tubac for a number of those years. I am a gray-haired old lady who still feels comfortable riding my horse or hiking in the Tumacacoris today. Yes, there is drug activity there, but there is drug activity everywhere in this area. A friend who lives over near the railroad tracks in Tubac watched a bunch of drug carriers hiking through the mesquites next to the railroad tracks just a few days ago. I have seen them while horseback-riding north of there, although mostly what I see are small groups of migrants heading north.
Illegal traffic is no reason to fail to protect this spectacular and fragile area. The Border Patrol might try actually putting people on the border, lots of them (on foot and horseback), to stop the illegal traffic before it gets into our country. Trying to stop the traffic once the people have entered this country is not even logical, and the current traffic north demonstrates this failure on the part of our attempts to capture migrants and smugglers.
Roberta Stabel
