SAGUARO NATIONAL PARK — The U.S. Interior Department will infuse $10.3 million into efforts to restore Arizona lands and water this year, offering a particular boost to projects battling non-native species in this park on Tucson’s edge, officials said Wednesday.The money comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and is meant to enhance local resilience in the face of climate change, the department said. It builds on about $5 million already dedicated to such projects in the state, and is part of $157 million in nationwide investments from the law, supporting 206 ecosystem restoration initiatives.“Nature is our best ally in the fight against climate change,” said Shannon Estenoz, assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, after a tour of the park’s buffelgrass control areas.Buffelgrass, a nonnative grass that has taken over southern Arizona hillsides, endangers cactuses and other vegetation by crowding them out and intensifying wildfires that threaten both the landscape and homes. The park had already begun this work, but now will have the wherewithal to join forces with Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and other parks to escalate the fight.Protecting saguaros:How removing invasive buffelgrass from Arizona forests can reduce wildfire threatsSaguaro and eight other southwestern national parks will also use some of the money to build a bullfrog-removal program, said Andy Hubbard, program manager for the National Park Service’s Sonoran Desert Network. He called the combination of this latest cash infusion and previous ones from the Inflation Reduction Act and the Great American Outdoors Act a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity to address a backlog of needs in the parks.“These investments allow us to do projects we just simply have not had capacity for in the past,” he said.Money will help hunt down bullfrogsAmerican bullfrogs are native to the eastern United States and may have been introduced in the Southwest as game animals by those who savor frog legs, Hubbard said. Unfortunately, they eat native frogs and toads, snakes and birds, he said …
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