By Joan Taylor | Will attention lead to action? Inaction in the face of a massive ecological and public health crisis is unacceptable. In spite of its dying fishery and hazardous exposed shoreline, the Salton Sea is still a stunningly gorgeous place and well worth saving. Proposals to fix the Sea’s problems have always been many, but […]
By Bill Albright | Not long ago the Anchorage Daily News published a letter (7 Dec 2017) from Northern Dynasty Minerals VP for External Affairs about the controversial Pebble Mine on the Alaska Peninsula. The author stated that the development team had decided to place a liner underneath the tailings impoundment. This was likely received as good […]
By Birgitta Jansen | Death Valley’s Backcountry Law Enforcement Ranger Bernard and I were driving down Panamint Valley Road enjoying the impressive sweep of the valley surrounded by rugged mountains, when we spotted a dot in the sky. Being long-time Mylar balloon watchers, we knew immediately what it had to be: a Mylar balloon. It looked […]
By Jora Fogg | The rush to implement new technologies to meet California’s renewable energy mandate has spurred several new proposals for pumped storage in the Eastern Sierra. This technique involves pumping water up hill between two or more reservoirs during times of low energy demand and then releasing it downhill to power turbines to generate electricity at […]
By John Hiatt | As a result of the passage of the Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act in 1971 (the Act), wild (feral) horses and burros on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Forest Service lands in the West have enjoyed federal protection against capture, killing, or harassment. Without significant natural enemies, horse and burro […]
By Anthony Tróchez | This essay does not directly deal with desert issues. Instead it is concerned with a worldview that threatens all aspects of our environment. It will be controversial and perhaps even offensive to some. On the other hand, it represents a point of view that can not be entirely dismissed and deserves […]
By Ileene Anderson and J.P. Rose | In the wild heart of California, at a crossroads where valleys, mountains, and deserts meet, lies Tejon Ranch, California’s quintessential natural landscape. Home to the California condor, Tejon encompasses more than 270,750 acres of private land between Los Angeles and Bakersfield – and it continues to be threatened […]
By Robin Kobaly | We are witness to assaults on our desert landscape every day, but we usually recognize only what we see above ground. In fact, these surface alterations result in critical changes below ground that have far-reaching implications that are mostly unnoticed or unappreciated. If we could see the intricate systems that […]
By Thomas Egan | The endangered Sonoran pronghorn, or “Desert Ghost,” may be returning soon to its historic haunts in the southern California Deserts. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is in the process of finalizing an Endangered Species Act Non-essential, Experimental Population Rule, which would allow this Spirit of the Desert to […]
By Doug Karpa | This article is rather technical, but please don’t be dissuaded. It is important and worth the effort to understand the problem that it discusses. – Editor. One of the most important battles in desert conservation isn’t about deserts at all, but rather about removing the unfair barriers to clean local energy. To […]
