As a way to maximize the value of these protected lands, we are partnering with Mojave Desert Land Trust (MDLT) on a new Monuments Marketing Tool Kit to help our struggling businesses find creative ways to leverage the new monuments designations. The tool kit will help businesses generate renewed interest in our surrounding lands, and boost interest in the services we provide to people who visit from all over the world.

Conservation Director Frazier Haney of the Mojave Desert Land Trust in Joshua Tree and Senior Director of Programs Danielle Murray of the Conservation Lands Foundation told our editorial board the other important thing the DRECP accomplished was connecting all of these areas. “California now has one of the largest conservation areas outside of Alaska,” Haney said.

Roll down your windows while cruising down the 101 through Agoura today, and you'll see a few one or two story buildings, brown rolling hills, and depending on the season, some green trees. But if everything goes according to plan, then by 2021 you'll be able to see a massive bridge arching over the highway, connecting restored habitat on either side of one of the nation's busiest roadways. The wildlife crossing at Liberty Canyon, when completed, promises to be the world's largest urban wildlife crossing.

A deal on conservation and renewable energy between the state of California and federal agencies that was eight years in the making is now a reality. U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell signed the record of decision finalizing the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan on Wednesday in Palm Desert.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has issued an historic and far-reaching decision balancing conservation with renewable energy development across a vast swath of the California desert. It's called the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, or DRECP, and will permanently protect significant areas of public lands in the California desert—including the Silurian Valley, Mayan Peak, and Chuckwalla Bench.

The Desert, is might be accurately stated, is lush with pure mystery and magic. One minute we're rambling along a clutch of creosote bushes, lost in reverie, when a darting catches our eye (a small bird, perhaps, or a lizard). Its wonders are plentiful and surprising, but we mostly experience them by the light of our planet's nearest star. To see someplace epic, like the Cadiz Dunes Wilderness Area, by the light of our lunar satellite is something pretty darn special, and if it is a full moon? Well, right there you have a walk to remember, even if you don't spy any lizards or birds along the way.