Residents of the Morongo Basin live next to a world-renowned national park. The Basin is also home to the Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center, the largest Marine Corps base in the country. And around these two huge tracts of land live about 100,000 people. The Mojave Desert Land Trust, based in Joshua Tree, acquires, restores, and protects land from the Mexican border to Death Valley. Part of these land purchases are wildlife corridors, which gives wildlife room to roam, hunt, and breed. Managing editor Tami Roleff went on an aerial tour (provided by EcoFlight, a non-profit organization founded in 2002 to provide the unique aerial perspective to conservation work) of some of these wildlife corridors yesterday with the Land Trust, and says wildlife corridors are necessary for plants, animals, and people…
Jessica Dacey of the Mojave Desert Land Trust says the Land Trust has purchased nearly 6,500 acres in the Morongo Basin to be used as wildlife corridors.
“Animals who live here, this is their highways. Wildlife corridors are natural highways.”
The corridors, which are a minimum of a mile wide, connect the park with the wide open spaces of the Marine base, and with the Sand to Snow and Castle Mountain National Monuments, and San Bernardino National Forest, among others.
“Wildlife corridors are one way of supporting every mission of different parties. The Marine base need wildlife corridors to act as a buffer…. Joshua Tree National Park needs wildlife corridors to help maintain the health of their animal and plant life, who need room to roam, to breed, to hunt. some species will travel up to 170 miles to breed.”
It’s not just wildlife who need the wildlife corridors, though. People like them too. “People who live in this area value dark skies, the nature and the clean air, treasure the national park.”
