The California Desert Land Conservancy

The plant conservation program includes a native plant restoration nursery and a conservation seed bank. The nursery grows native plants for restoration contracts for revegetation projects throughout the california deserts. The seed bank stores and preserves native seeds and herbarium specimens from mdlt properties for future research. In fy24, the nursery sold over 4,000 plants and propagated 73 species for restoration and our annual public plant sale. The seed bank hired dedicated management and field staff and made 75 collections of 61 species to preserve and protect the biodiversity of the deserts of california.

Education and public outreach programs include guided hikes, outdoor education, outreach at fairs and festivals, lectures and workshops, special events, and an internship for women in science, technology, engineering, and math. A total of 795 young people aged 9-18 years old connected with the desert through mdlt's educational programming between january and june 2024. Of these, 82 elementary students took part in a field trip to an internationally recognized birdwatching preserve and 45 high school students went on a stargazing trip to one of the locations with the darkest skies in the mojave desert. Other pupils carried out citizen science, carried out stewardship on mdlt lands, and learned about desert ecology through experiential learning labs at schools and in classrooms. 132 students toured mdlt's seed bank, native plant demonstration garden, and conservation lands. Ten honors students took part in an immersive program studying the desert tortoise. Additionally, 61 adults and youth joined a guided hike in a riparian area and attended a local community event about accessible public lands. Around 25 people attended an interpretive hike in an area that was later designated as the new chuckwalla national monument. Over 60 people attended a conference in riverside to promote greater inclusion of women in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. In fy24 we had 102 volunteers contribute 3,854.25 hours. Three people took part in the women in science discovering our mojave (wisdom) internship collecting data about tamarisk beetles and bumblebees in mojave trails national monument. An americorps team with 8 members contributed an additional 2078.5 hours from february-april. The team helped with stewardship projects, native plant conservation, outreach events, and administrative assistance.