| Issue Statements - Accomplishments |
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Protecting California's Pristine Desert
The California Desert Protection Act
The California Desert Protection Act protected more than 7 million acres of pristine California desert. It was the largest such designation in the history of the continental United States – and established the Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Parks and the East Mojave Natural Preserve.
The California Desert is home to remarkable archaeology, beauty and wildlife – some of the last remaining dinosaur tracks, Native American petroglyphs, abundant spring wildflowers, and threatened species including the bighorn sheep and the desert tortoise, an animal known to live for as many as 100 years. The California Desert Protection Act ensured that these lands would be preserved for years to come.
In total, the Act raised the protection level for 9 million acres of parks and wilderness.
Specifically, the Act:
- Designated nearly 3.5 million acres of desert administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) as wilderness.
- Added 1.2 million acres of land to Death Valley National Monument and redesignated the monument a national park.
- Added 234,000 acres of land to Joshua Tree National Monument and redesignated the area a national park.
- Established a new 1.6 million acre Mojave National Preserve.
- Transferred 20,500 acres of BLM land to the state of California to expand the Red Rock Canyon State Park.
Since 2000 the wilderness area has been expanded even further with the purchase of nearly 600,000 acres of land primarily in and around the Mojave National Preserve. The transaction, the largest conservation acquisition of private lands in U.S. history, combined federal Land and Water Conservation Fund appropriations with funding from the Wildlands Conservancy to buy discounted land owned by the Catellus Development Corporation.
This expansion protected 200,000 acres of critical habitat for the endangered desert tortoise, 150,000 acres for bighorn sheep, the largest cactus gardens in the world at Bigelow Cholla Gardens and rights-of-way for 165 trails and access roads leading to 3.7 million additional acres of land used for hunting, hiking and camping.
To learn more about the Act, please view the booklet- California Desert Protection Act: Preserving Our Nation's Natural Resources.
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