The Mojave Desert Land Trust manages over 60,000 acres across the Mojave and Colorado Deserts. We restore these properties to maintain habitat for native plants and animals and promote ecosystem resilience to climate change. Projects include repairing disturbed areas using a variety of ecological restoration techniques. As part of our specialist conservation work, we restore and protect desert tortoise habitat, preserve native plant genetic diversity with the Mojave Desert Seed Bank, and are part of a coalition addressing immediate needs for the western Joshua tree.
Species preservation
The Mojave Desert Seed Bank is a repository of seeds of the native flora of the Mojave and Colorado Deserts. Seeds from the Mojave Desert Seed Bank are used to restore degraded habitat, for research, and for the long-term conservation of species.
Urgent gaps in western Joshua tree protection are being tackled with a new program. A coalition of experts and land managers is being formed and a research project will monitor the status of the western Joshua tree across its range. Led by the Mojave Desert Land Trust and funded by California’s Wildlife Conservation Board, the coalition will address two of the most significant and immediate needs for the species.
MDLT is leading a project to restore and protect critical desert tortoise habitat in the western Mojave Desert. Over three years we are carrying out an interagency strategy of establishing large, intact expanses of habitat by clearly delineating and signing legal travel routes in the area, and halting and restoring unauthorized cross-country off-highway vehicle activity and route proliferation that has occurred in this region.
Restoration
Rewilding a Mojave oasis
In the driest desert in North America, Palisades Ranch is one of the few locations along the Mojave River where water flows aboveground year-round. Once slated for development, this 1,647-acre property was acquired by the Mojave Desert Land Trust in 2018.
Watch this video to learn more about our restoration plans.
Although the Mojave River supports rich habitat, Palisades Ranch has been impacted by illegal off-highway vehicle (OHV) activity, invasive plants, human development, and agriculture. MDLT is working to restore and protect the rich habitats and resources at Palisades Ranch. The California Wildlife Conservation Board is a project partner and funder of Palisades Ranch. If you would like to get involved, learn more, or provide feedback about MDLT’s restoration plans, please email: info@mdlt.org or call 760-366-5440.
Our nursery facilities include an 1,800 square foot greenhouse, a 6,000 square foot shade house, and 1,500 square feet of growing area for seed increase production. We can grow plant material for projects according to contract specifications. Services include site-specific seed collection, seed bulking, and contract growing of container plants.
The tricolored blackbird population has steeply declined in recent decades. Stinging nettles grown by the Mojave Desert Land Trust could help turn that around. MDLT was contracted to grow plants for a restoration project at Pleitito Creek in Wind Wolves Preserve.
Palisades Ranch acts as a crucial wildlife corridor that allows flora and fauna to migrate and thrive. MDLT acquired the 1,647-acre property in 2018 with plans to make Palisades Ranch a sustainable oasis in the West Mojave through invasive plant management, habitat restoration and restoration of the floodplain and riparian habitats. Learn about our restoration plans here.
What is desert stewardship?
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