Mojave Desert Blog

Sweden-based company Eolus is reviving plans to build the Crescent Peak Wind project in southern Nevada on wildlands prized for wildlife and primitive recreation.  Basin & Range Watch learned that the company filed initial paperwork with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to begin environmental review of the project. This photo was taken along the northeastern boundary of the Wee Thump Joshua Tree Wilderness Area. The Crescent Peak area is in the distance on the right, and would be covered in giant wind turbines if Eolus gets its way. Solitude or Industrial Zone? Eolus is targeting a patchwork of unprotected lands in the Piute Valley that the BLM acknowledges are ideal for primitive recreation, and surrounded by conservation and wilderness designations. The Piute Valley offers a “range of outdoor recreation activities associated with a wide-open landscape with limited developments,” according to the BLM's own draft resource management plan. The Piute Valley is roug

When I was young my grandparents took my brother, sister and me on a road trip from our home in the Victor Valley, California to their home in New Mexico, spending a night in Laughlin, Nevada on the way.  My exposure to the desert up until then was limited to the parcels of undeveloped private land scattered across the Victor Valley and surrounding its edges where my brother and I would play, spending most of our time in a 90 acre plot across the street from our home.  At the time, that corner of the desert seemed to offer endless opportunity for exploration, riding our bikes, finding lizards, identifying different wildflowers and insects, before even that lot was bulldozed for a new housing development.  I remember staring out the window of my grandparent's car on that trip as we traversed Interstate 40, and eventually cutting up Highway 95 in Nevada to Laughlin, taking a dirt road that I think may have been Christmas Tree Pass.  I remember feeling endless amazement as the lands

A majority of Californians have expressed  support  for  three new monuments  proposed for California's desert and under consideration by the President.   Voices opposing the designation of new national monuments, however, appear to be driven by misinformation and a distorted faith in Congress to act as a responsible steward of our wildlands.  They claim that conservation has run amok, that monument designations will lock out the public, and that only Congress should decide which lands to protect. Tyrannical Conservation Designations? The first claim - that conservation is some oppressive land management regime that has run amok - is relatively easy to dispute.  National Parks, monuments, and wilderness areas - wildlands that are protected from most types of industrial development - account for about 4% of the total land area of the United States.  With that number in mind, consider that we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction of wildlife species on Earth.  This is mo