Protected land inside a national monument area in southern Arizona is reportedly being blown up by the Trump administration as part of construction in the president’s border wall. According to The Intercept, the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is where the blast is taking place — an area that is held in high regards both spiritually and culturally for several Native American groups — and on the homelands of the Tohono O’odham.

The site was also named a UNESCO International Biosphere Reserve in 1976. According to the National Park Service, the Organ Pipe Cactus Biosphere Reserve is unique in its representation of “a pristine example of an intact Sonoran Desert ecosystem.”

The Intercept reported that, in a statement sent to them from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), they were told the “controlled blasting” began this week and will continue through the end of the month, with an environmental monitor present.

Representative Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) is the chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources. After being joined by archaeologists and leaders of the Tohono O’odham Nation during a visit to the Organ Pipe last month, he said he doesn’t have faith that the environmental monitor will protect the land and outlined his concerns over the lack of consultation in a letter to the Department of Homeland Security.

Contractors have reportedly drained water from a rare desert aquifer to mix concrete for the wall and bulldozed a wide roadway while uprooting saguaro cacti — a vital part of the area’s ecosystem that is also sacred to the Tohono O’odham people — to make room for construction vehicles. The lights from the wall are also expected to impact the migration of rare animal species in the area.

Additionally, in November, Chairman Ned Norris Jr. of the Tohono O’odham Nation wrote in a letter to Border Patrol officials about his concerns with construction as human remains protected by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act had already been found. The New York Times reported back in September that with the construction of Trump’s border wall, more than 20 archaeological sites in the area will be significantly damaged or destroyed.