A few good men — and women — are helping the Mojave Desert Land Trust clean up conservation lands the trust has acquired in its region — stretching from Mexico to Death Valley. The land trust, a nonprofit conservation organization, raises funds from private foundations and private citizens to buy land for conservation and preservation throughout the Mojave Desert. Since its founding in 2005, the group has acquired 54,000 acres of conservation lands — investing more than $28 million in the preservation of these vital ecosystems in the California desert.

The Mojave Desert Land Trust and the Wildlands Conservancy, which protect some wilderness areas near the national park, are also participating in the study. Barrows and his colleagues plan to eventually publish the results of their research. Barrows said he has been noticing some changes in the desert lately. He has been seeing very few of two types of lizards — chuckwallas and desert horned lizards — in some of the flat, low-lying areas of the park where he used to see them regularly just a few years ago.

"What we're trying to do right now is create a baseline of animals and plants that will enable us to look in the future years to say, 'These are changing, the numbers are either increasing or decreasing,'" Barrows said. "We want to be able to identify areas that are really important for protecting these species and make sure that the park is able to identify those as well and protect them." The Mojave Desert Land Trust and the Wildlands Conservancy, which protect some wilderness areas near the national park, are also participating in the study.

The Mojave Desert Land Trust, an organization that protects these desert areas by strategically buying privately owned land within them, also points out that many of these species depend on wildlife corridors, and that a solar or wind plant in a wildlife corridor will cut it off and could endanger species. The desert is also what the Mojave Desert Land Trust describes as “one of the floristic frontiers in the United States.” What they mean by that is that we don’t even know what an estimated 6 to 10 percent of the plants here are yet.

The Mojave Desert Land Trust (MDLT) was founded in 2005 by concerned local citizens to "acquire critical habitat for permanent preservation in the Mojave Desert, a need that cannot always be met with public dollars." MDLT went to work immediately to secure private funds from philanthropic foundations, non-profit organizations, and individual donors, and by 2006 had acquired its first property for gifting to the National Park Service.

For those who haven’t had the opportunity to spend time here, it can be difficult to understand the value of the desert. Some people fear it, others see it as a wasteland, and others just view it a middle ground between “here” and “there.” As conservation director at the Mojave Desert Land Trust and a longtime desert resident, I’ve had the privilege to explore the most populous to remote regions of the California desert’s unique and resource-rich lands. Stunning Joshua tree forests silhouetted at sunset, giant sand dunes, Sonoran woodlands rich with purple and yellow blooms, and a diversity of plants and bees equal to anywhere in our country.