Climate change and lack of water are persistent challenges in the desert. With the acceleration of development and popularity of Joshua Tree National State Park and surrounding areas, concerns rise in the community that there is not enough realistic legislation in place to protect our fragile environment.

Communities now more than ever have the responsibility of caring for and protecting the land they live on. Your voice counts.

There are few places in America that have avoided the destruction of nature to accelerate the built environment. Up until now, the desert was left untouched by development. Local activities such as off-roading and garbage dumping on the side of the road, have been long term community concerns. Disturbing Native Flora by scraping land and leaving nothing behind, is not the way forward.

California Fish and Game Commission, P.O. Box 944209, Sacramento, CA, 94244–2090

Email: fgc@fgc.ca.gov

Miriam Seger - Developer/Conservationist “But here in the Morongo Basin, “scrape first, plan later” blading is par for the course and removing all vegetation from entire tracts will have the eventual effect of fragmenting homogeneous populations, making recruitment and adaptation in these disturbed areas unlikely. Mitigation constraints could conceptually boil down to three simple words: leave something behind. “