Hi-Desert Star: Seeds for the future; Mojave Desert Land Trust banks plants to ensure future of desert ecology
Since its founding in 2006, the Mojave Desert Land Trust has conserved over 100,000 acres, conveying more tracts of land to the Joshua Tree National Park Service in the last decade than any other organization. In addition to acquiring land, the land trust has established a seed bank to ensure the preservation of native species.
At its Joshua Tree headquarters, MDLT operates a nursery that has grown over 100,000 native plants since 2016 for ecosystem restoration.
The Mojave Desert Seed Bank includes an inventory of California desert seeds for use in restoration projects throughout the region.
“There are a lot of threats to our biodiversity: climate change, habitat loss, invasive species and fire. And there’s also, in conjunction with those threats, a general lack of seeds available for restoration when a disturbance happens. So we’re trying to do our part to not only preserve seeds, but to conduct research on germination and propagation protocols and to provide that information to the general public and to land managers,” said Patrick Emblidge, seed program manager.