10 Threatened California Desert Lands You Should Know About Right Now
In September of 2016, after more than eight years of collaborative work by the Department of Interior, the state of California, Native American Nations, environmental groups, renewable energy companies, local citizens, and many others, a historic management plan was finalized for the California desert. Known as the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP), it balanced conservation, recreation, and renewable energy development in one of the largest remaining intact ecosystems in the lower 48 states. Then, on February 2nd, the Trump Administration pushed to re-open the plan, creating confusion and uncertainty in the desert. Public meetings began this week on the plan. You can speak up to defend the California Desert at: desertlands.org/action.
Here are ten spectacular #BLMWild places that could be at risk under a Trump-led revamp of the desert plan.
Amargosa Basin
The Amargosa Basin is unique for its abundance of flowing springs that compose the Amargosa Wild and Scenic River — the only free-flowing river in the Mojave Desert. As a result, rare wildlife flourishes along this ribbon of green and the basin is home to one of the highest concentrations of endangered species in the desert Southwest. Among the wildlife that makes its home here is the endangered Amargosa vole, a small rodent that lives nowhere else on earth.
Silurian Valley
The Silurian Valley is ringed with mountain ranges that tower thousands of feet above sweeping bajadas lined with creosote plants. The valley was once filled with large lakes, and was home to paleo-Indians who lived on their shores. The now dry lake playas contain archaeological evidence that tell the story of numerous historic Paiute settlements. More recent history is evident as well, with traces of the Old Spanish Trail running across the valley and remnants of repeated gold rushes dot the Salt Spring Hills.
Silurian Valley provides vital habitat and landscape connectivity among the many BLM Wilderness Areas surrounding it, as well as Death Valley National Park and the Mojave National Preserve. Its designation as part of the California Desert National Conservation Lands protects migratory pathways for bighorn sheep and desert tortoise.
Centennial Flats
Centennial Flats is located off Highway 190, to the west of Death Valley National Park. Millions of visitors travel through the area each year and stop to wander among the dense Joshua Tree forest, picnic, explore, and camp next to the beautiful rock features. Upper Centennial Flat and Centennial Canyon hold some of the richest prehistoric cultural sites in the California Desert with evidence of living sites, hunting tools, trails and petroglyphs.
This area was made famous when it was featured in the artwork of U2’s 1987 album “Joshua Tree” — one of the world’s best-selling albums — which drew inspiration from the California Desert to evoke the feeling of America’s open spaces. Rolling Stone magazine ranked the album cover among the 100 greatest of all time. Though the Joshua Tree that was photographed for the album cover fell around 15 years ago, the site remains a popular attraction.
Conglomerate Mesa
The view from the top of this 7,700 foot mesa is one of the best in the California desert. Visitors are treated to 360 degrees of multiple wilderness areas, Owens Lake, the glittering Sierra Nevada and Mt. Whitney, Saline Valley, and Telescope Peak in Death Valley National Park. Conglomerate Mesa is sprinkled with Joshua, juniper, and pinyon trees and is also home to rare plant species such as the Inyo Rock Daisy and Ripley’s Cymopterus, aka springparsley, which is in the carrot family.
The mesa is geologically significant, providing an unusually complete record that is key to unraveling the evolution of the continental edge of the southwestern United States during the Permian and early Triassic periods about 300 million years ago. Fossils like corals and fusulinids, a type of plankton with calcite casings, allow scientists to accurately date the earth’s layers, and some of the fusulinids are found only in the Conglomerate Mesa area. The diversity of wildlife species in Conglomerate Mesa includes bobcats, Mojave Ground Squirrels, Townsend’s Western Big-eared bats, Golden Eagles, and mountain lions. It is also a vital migratory corridor for Nelson’s bighorn sheep. This public land is also prized locally for its world class deer hunting.
Panamint Valley
To the west of Death Valley, the basin and range topography reveals another valley. Not as low or as hot as its infamous neighbor, Panamint Valley is an uncrowded and beautiful secret. Completely ringed by sharp mountain ranges, the alkali flats on the valley floor provide a stark white contrast to the striped and colorful mountains. Burbling creeks pour out of canyons in the Panamint Range to the east and the Argus Range to the west, creating corridors of green life that support thriving habitat for rare desert birds, reptiles, and mammals including bighorn sheep. The Panamint Valley is one of the ancestral homes of the Timbisha Shoshone, and there are still Native lands at Indian Ranch. Mining history is evident throughout the Valley, including most prominently the fascinating ghost town of Ballarat. Successive mining booms left their traces up many of the canyons above Panamint Valley, and more intrepid visitors can explore these relics and ruins on foot.
Chuckwalla Bench
Chuckwalla Bench stretches from Joshua Tree National Park along the Chocolate Mountains and down to the Colorado River, and is surrounded by Wilderness Areas like the Palo Verde and Chuckwalla Mountains. The Bench remains a largely intact ecosystem because of its early recognition as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern.
Chuckwalla Bench is home to desert forests, cinder cones, and spectacular cactus gardens, and summer monsoons bring the area to life. Interlacing channels and canyons filled with ironwood, Palo Verde trees, bunchgrasses, and ocotillo separate expanses of “desert pavement.”
Hidden along these channels are occasional springs that draw migrating birds and other wildlife, creating excellent opportunities for wildlife watching. The woodlands are also home to an array of species, including the elusive burro deer. The Bench is also one of the best contiguous tortoise habitats in the California desert.
Native Americans used these desert forests as hunting grounds, travelling up from permanent settlements along the Colorado River to hunt deer and game birds. This tradition continues today under management of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Bureau of Land Management.
Yuha Desert
The Yuha Desert is a special relic of the Imperial Valley’s history. While much of the valley has been converted to agricultural use, the Yuha Desert remains undeveloped. Formerly underneath the waters of ancient Lake Cahuilla, the Yuha is a land of mudhills and sand dunes, lizards and nighthawks, torrential floods and dust storms. The Yuha is also the last, best refuge for the flat-tailed horned lizard.
Ancient peoples lived along the shores of Lake Cahuilla, and former village sites can still be found in the Yuha. These peoples left their mark with enormous itaglios (geoglyphs) depicting human and spirit forms that can be seen from the air. The famous San Juan Bautista de Anza Trail also runs through the Yuha. The extreme vulnerability of these historic sites has long been a driver for permanent protection of the Yuha.
Middle Knob
Middle Knob is located about an hour drive north of Los Angeles near Mojave. The landscape is home to an unusual array of plant species, from Joshua trees and creosote at the lower elevations to manzanitas, junipers, pinyon pines, gray pines, and Jeffrey pines in the higher elevations. Willows and cottonwood trees rise tall and lush across the majestic Pine Tree Canyon, lined by rare Mojavean scrub found nowhere else in the world. Unique vernal pools and pebble plains occur on the ridges, providing habitat for one of California’s rarest native species: Kern buckwheat. The area provides prime nesting habitat for raptors and special-status birds like the Le Conte’s thrasher and California horned lark. Kawaiisu native peoples call Middle Knob their home and their heartland. The landscape abounds with the sacred sites of the hunter-gatherers who migrated from the Great Basin and lived off the land for nearly 3,000 years. Middle Knob also holds one of the desert’s most rare examples of volcanic geological history. Two major mountain-building fault systems lie beneath the precious landscape, and their Miocene lakebed sediments have yielded dozens of extraordinary vertebrate fossil sites over the years.
Milpitas Wash
Located near the southern end of the Mule Mountains, Milpitas Wash boasts the largest Sonoran Desert Woodland in the Unites States. The abundance of old growth mesquites, acacias, palo verdes, and ironwoods, many standing over 15 feet high, gives the area a lush character rarely found in the desert. The area is an important part of the traditional homeland of the Quechan Tribe. Ancient trails, rock art, sleeping circles and rock alignments can be found today and members of the tribe continue to utilize the area for cultural purposes. Milpitas Wash provides habitat for desert bighorn sheep, desert tortoise, the endangered Gila woodpecker, quail, mountain lion, and the Colorado River toad.
Mayan Peak
Mayan Peak lies within a unique and beautiful desert region comprised of mountains, valleys, and foothills, with dense Joshua tree forests and pinyon pines. Opportunities for hiking and horseback riding abound in the area, with the Pacific Crest Trail bisecting the area. Wildlife including the threatened Mohave ground squirrel, the American badger, burrowing owl, and prairie falcon, among many other species, make their homes here. A portion of the area is an Area of Critical Environmental Concern, which was designated to protect Native American cultural resources as well as wildlife habitat.
YOU are the public in public lands! Add your voice to defend the California #DesertPlan at desertlands.org/action.
