“Seed banks are a crucial tool for the conservation and management of ecosystems and the preservation of regional biodiversity, helping us safeguard our flora against species extinction and restore habitats and ecosystems with genetically-appropriate, source-identified seed. This project will expand MDLT's seed bank program and allow us, along with our partners, to better address the region's seed needs and the growing threats caused by climate change and habitat loss,” said Madena Asbell, Director of Plant Conservation Programs at the Mojave Desert Land Trust.

California lawmakers have agreed to create a conservation plan and a fund to help protect the western Joshua Tree, which faces extinction due to climate change.

Kelly Herbinson is the co-executive director of the Mojave Desert Land Trust. She says western Joshua trees are dying from the worst drought in more than a thousand years.

A mountain lion spotted taking refuge at a Yucca Valley home died last week due to injuries consistent with being struck by a car. The 5-year-old female mountain lion was spotted June 24 by homeowners as she lay in the shade of their residence in Yucca Valley. The land trust is working with Caltrans in the hopes of creating a wildlife crossing on Twentynine Palms Highway.

“This seed bank acts as an insurance policy — or, if you want to look at it a different way, like Noah’s Ark,” Godoy said. “When there is a need for that seed, our mission is to have it ready and here and in prime condition.”

Still, so far, the Mojave Desert Seed Bank is safeguarding less than 10% of the plant species found in our local deserts.

“We don’t think of the desert as this really lush, biodiverse forest,” said Kelly Herbinson, joint executive director of the Mojave Desert Land Trust. “But it really is. In fact, we have a higher level of biodiversity than many pine forest ecosystems.”

Thanks to a $3.2 million state grant, and a large contribution from an anonymous private donor, the trust’s seed bank is about to get a lot of new deposits.

Tracking beetles, studying bighorn sheep, counting bumble bees, identifying bird species - these are just some of the activities interns participate in as part of the Women In Science Discovering Our Mojave, or WISDOM, an internship program providing science, technology, engineering and math opportunities for women biologists.

Started by the Mojave Desert Land Trust, the Bureau of Land Management’s Needles and Barstow Field Offices have partnered with and supported the program since 2019. The WISDOM program creates opportunities for burgeoning women scientists to explore the Mojave Desert and gain valuable field experience to assist in a career path as future scientists and desert advocates. In many cases, the program is the participants’ first taste of field biology in the Mojave Desert.

There’s a regenerative power in the desert, no matter how bone-chillingly cold it is on a January night.

Last weekend, I saw plenty of gorgeous granite — and even climbed it. Jumbo Rocks Campground in Joshua Tree National Park is radiant with inselbergs, or islands of rock formed by erosion, that are millions of years old. The feeling of hiking in the shadows of these behemoths is transformative.

I’d wanted to hike across the sand dunes I had heard about, including some of the 640 Cadiz Valley acres newly protected by the Mojave Desert Land Trust (MDLT). But, as we picked up s’mores ingredients at the Twentynine Palms grocery store, I briefly got online. What I read in the MDLT press release announcing the Mojave Trails National Monument area stopped me in my tracks. “As there is little human disturbance, this special property has ample signs of wildlife, with numerous animal tracks visible in the sandy soil,” the MDLT conservators wrote.