Conservation: California Desert

The California desert is one of the largest primarily intact landscapes left in North America. It consists mostly of public lands and has a substantial base of protected areas that are managed by agencies like the National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management. 

Renowned as a tourist destination, the California desert is a world-class area for hiking, rock climbing, stargazing and other recreation that generates substantial revenues for the local economy. 

Its craggy mountain ranges, shifting sand dunes and wildflower-filled valleys also contain important Native American cultural sites and historical resources like the Old Spanish Trail and Route 66. 

For decades we have successfully advanced conservation in this region. However, there is much work to be done to defend our prior gains and to further protect and connect this fragile landscape.

Many areas of the desert are threatened by poor management plans that fail to properly protect native plants and wildlife, regulate irresponsible use of motorized vehicles, or preserve cultural and historic sites. There are also concerns about possible rollbacks of existing wildland conservation designations.

We want more balanced and responsible management, and oppose Bureau of Land Management planning that prioritizes off-road vehicles over other uses of sensitive desert lands. We are also challenging efforts to strip national monument and conservation land designations, as well as proposals to export the region’s limited groundwater and open sensitive lands to new mining. 

We are defending the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP) which allocates substantial areas for conservation while guiding renewable energy projects to the least damaging sites. This plan was achieved following an 8-year collaborative process but now risks being rolled back by the Department of the Interior.