Desert Sun: State funds to protect wildlife corridor between Joshua Tree National Park, military base
Two California desert conservancies have won more than $2 million in state funds to acquire critical habitat for imperiled species.
In Riverside County, Oswit Land Trust was awarded $1.5 million for 642 acres in the foothills of the San Jacinto Mountains, preserving healthy coastal sage scrub, grasslands, and other habitats occupied by numerous sensitive species.
In San Bernadino County, Mojave Desert Land Trust was awarded $577,000 to acquire an 80-acre property south of Yucca Valley within a wildlife corridor that connects Joshua Tree National Park with the Sand to Snow National Monument. The project will permanently protect western Joshua tree and desert tortoise habitat near the newly designated Mojave Desert Sentinel Landscape. The 3.5 million acre Mojave Desert Sentinel Landscape includes five desert military bases and over 40 protected species, limiting the military and NASA's ability to test, research, train, and operate on 2.8 million additional acres of military installations surrounding the sentinel landscape.
The grants are part of $7.5 million in funding for 10 projects in eight counties by California's natural resources agency under its transportation and environment mitigation program, which helps government agencies and nonprofits fund projects that make up for adverse impacts from new or modified state transportation projects. Widening a highway, for instance, can mean bulldozing vital grasslands or shrubs that are home to myriad wild plants and animals.