Cima Dome


If you're looking for a good day hike, try Teutonia Peak trail located in the northern portion of Mojave National Preserve.  The photo above was taken from the trail, with a portion of the Cima Dome in the distance.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mowing Vegetation as Mitigation: Trump Administration Practice Goes Unchallenged

Image
The Trump administration is again touting the practice of mowing thousands of acres of desert vegetation as environmentally-responsible, despite a preponderance of evidence to the contrary.  The draft environmental review of the Yellow Pine Solar project in southern Nevada claims that vegetation mowing - as opposed to bulldozing - will yield positive outcomes that are highly doubtful.   This positive framing of the construction practice misleads the public and decisionmakers and ignores decades of scientific research regarding the impacts of mechanized disturbance on desert wildlands.  According to the draft environmental review: "Mowing is becoming the standard on large site-type ROWs to prevent permanent impairment of public lands (as mandated by FLPMA) and in lieu of off-site mitigation... Mowing methods are designed to help preserve soils, biological soil crusts, soil seed banks, native perennial vegetation diversity and structure, and cacti and yucca species, and to resist
Read more

How Many Plants Species in the Desert?

Would you expect that California's desert hosts gives the redwood forest a run for its money when it comes to plant biodiversity?  It's easy to take the desert for granted when all you want to do is zoom through it on the highway and get to your destination. But you are passing by an amazing and biologically diverse ecosystem.  There are at least 2,450 native plant species found in California's desert, according to a great article by Chris Clarke on desert life , posted at KCET. If you want to learn more about our amazing deserts, join Desert Biodiversity, a new organization dedicated to exploring, respecting and defending the deserts.
Read more

Speak Up For An Energy Policy That Preserves Pristine Desert

Image
The Federal government is currently reviewing a broad policy shift that could encourage solar energy development on thousands of square miles of pristine public land in America's deserts, according to its Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement ( Draft EIS ).  Unfortunately, the new policy fails to consider a much better alternative, which is to encourage solar energy development on rooftops and on already-disturbed lands.  After a summary of the policy's potential impacts, you can read below to learn how to submit public comments on the policy as a concerned citizen, and urge a smarter approach . Summary of the Policy : The Departments of Interior and Energy are jointly reviewing three alternative policies for permitting solar energy on public land.   Each alternative makes a different amount of public land available to energy companies, but the government estimates that companies will use 214,000 acres (334 square miles) within 20 years. The "
Read more