How EarthlyEducation used chilli to help stop bulldozers inside Big Bend

Earthly Education

@earthlyeducation

1.2M+ followers

Climate Policies

what's at stake

Big Bend is one of the wildest national parks in the U.S. at the border with Mexico. The Trump administration pushed for a new border infrastructure to be built: barriers, access roads, surveillance tech, and possible lighting across desert, river, and wildlife habitat that cannot just be rebuilt later.

A $1.7 billion contract was awarded for border work in the Big Bend region.
Big Bend protects the Rio Grande, desert habitat, wildlife corridors, public lands, local tourism, and one of the most intact national park landscapes in the country.
DHS waived major environmental and public lands protections to speed the work up.
CBP plans included vehicle barriers, access roads, and detection technology inside the park.
Former park leaders, local communities, conservation groups, and lawmakers were already pushing back. The fight was to stop the damage before it became permanent.

the mission

EarthlyEducation saw the risk clearly: construction was moving fast, and Big Bend needed more than concern. It needed pressure in the right inboxes, from enough people, quickly enough to make a difference.

So the campaign focused on the decision-makers with the power to slow or stop the work.

Push Congress to step in: get lawmakers to act before DHS and CBP moved further into the park.
Go after the funding lever: pressure House appropriators to question and pause destructive work.
Force public oversight: make Homeland Security and Natural Resources leaders answer for what was happening inside a national park.
Back the local fight: turn national attention into support for the residents, conservation groups, and former park leaders already sounding the alarm.

The goal was simple: make it politically harder to keep building quietly inside Big Bend.

How EarthlyEducation used chilli to mobilize

EarthlyEducation used chilli to turn a fast-moving park threat into coordinated constituent pressure.

3K+ actions taken
1,465 supporters
2K emails sent
65 calls made

Supporters emailed House appropriators, House Homeland Security, House Natural Resources, and Senate National Parks leaders. They also called Congress directly.

That mix of tactics was key. Emails made the issue visible at scale. Calls made it harder to ignore. Together, they helped put national pressure behind the local resistance trying to keep bulldozers out of Big Bend.

This is where chilli is useful: when the window is short, we need more than a petition. The cause needs a fast way to hit the individuals who can actually make a difference.

the impact

Within six days of EarthlyEducation's campaign going live on chilli, CBP paused construction activity inside Big Bend National Park.

The Hill reported that CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott halted construction activity in the park after bipartisan pushback. Scott said he had put "a pause on all activity in that park as far as construction goes" while he carried out an on-the-ground evaluation.

CBP paused construction activity inside Big Bend National Park.
The Hill reported that the halt came after bipartisan pushback against the barrier effort.
CBP said the pause would allow Commissioner Rodney Scott to visit the park and evaluate the work on the ground.

Big Bend is safe for now. Not safe forever. But this was a real brake. In less than a week, EarthlyEducation used chilli to turn a quiet construction push into a public accountability fight, and CBP hit pause before the damage went further.