At 25 million acres, the California Desert encompasses fully a quarter of the State of California. Since passage of the California Desert Protection Act in the 1990s, much of this remarkable region is now set aside as parks and wilderness areas. Despite that status, threats continue, and Wilderness Society is pledged to ensure that management of the area fulfills the promise of the law.
A Beautiful Place
The California desert is austere, challenging and beautiful. It is also wild, thanks to decades of inspired citizen activism in its defense.
And it is big: 25 million acres, roughly a quarter of California's total area. It is home to the desert tortoise, bighorn sheep, pupfish, and a wide variety of birds and reptiles uniquely suited to survival in a forbidding environment. More than 90 separate mountain ranges rise from the floor of the California Desert
Because of the California Desert Protection Act of 1994, there are parks, preserves and wilderness areas there, too. Among them are the Mojave National Preserve, Joshua Tree National Park, and Death Valley National Park, which at 3.3 million acres is the largest park in the country. The desert contains 65 individual wilderness areas, the best of the lands under the care of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
Efforts Pay Off
The Wilderness Society spent a decade advocating for passage of the Desert Protection Act, which is responsible for much of this wildland legacy. We remain active in the desert today to ensure that the protection the Act envisioned is real and enduring. To that end, The Wilderness Society maintains one of its two California satellite field offices at the edge of the desert in Riverside.
But Challenges Remain
Our current priorities include establishing a funding stream through the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund to acquire key parcels of land at Mojave National Park and Preserve and important inholdings in BLM wilderness areas. With our California partners, we also intend to secure additional wilderness designations for several deserving areas that were not included in the 1994 designations. We are building a constituency for land conservation in the region. And we are in the process of preparing an analysis of the economic benefits of parks and wilderness in the California Desert.
Roads in the Mojave Preserve
The desert is the place it is in large part because it is intact and roadless. But much of that will disappear if San Bernardino County succeeds in its scheme to gouge roads into the Mojave National Park and Preserve, mostly at the behest of dirt bikers and other off-road vehicle interests. The county, like others around the West, is invoking a provision of the 1866 Mining Act to claim miles and miles of rights of way in the Preserve. The Congress repealed the absurdly antiquated law in 1976 but left open avenues for consideration of claims that predate the repeal.
These claims have little to do with legitimate transportation needs and everything to do with controlling access and land use, in particular dirt bike and other motorized activity. Early in 2003, the Bush Administration unveiled a new rule that will allow the Department of the Interior to simply acquiesce in these ludicrous claims by disclaiming any interest in the rights of way. And it simultaneously makes conservationists' work hugely more difficult.
The Administration developed its "Disclaimer Rule" in secret refused to tell the truth about its real purpose. The rule will shut out the public completely from decisions to surrender effective management of public lands to anti-environmental local governments, even to individuals.
California Desert Facts
- Location: California
- Size: 25 million acres
- Date: This area was designated by Congress on October 21, 1976, through the Federal Land Policy and Management Act
- Managing Agency: The Bureau of Land Management
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