Public Lands Happy Hour tonight at Más o Menos in Joshua Tree
There is always a lot happening on public lands out here in the Mojave Desert – the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages over 15 million acres of what was once considered federally protected public lands – that’s about 15% of California’s land mass. However, those federal protections have been loosening with the Trump administration’s directives to extract minerals from areas within or adjacent to monuments and parks, or the outright removal of statuses such as the dramatic shrinking of of the Grand Staircase Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments in Utah.
Locally, an Australian mining company has staked claims in the Music Valley area of the Pinto Mountains Wilderness just outside Twentynine Palms and Joshua Tree National Park. A three-decade back-and-forth with the Cadiz pipeline project is proposing to pump groundwaters out of the aquifers in the Mojave Desert and send it to coastal communities in California, and a change in how San Bernardino County approves mining projects could fast-track more extraction here in the hi-desert.
Keeping track of everything that is happening can be a little harrowing from time to time, but luckily we have local organizations that are also staying vigilant.
The second public lands happy hour is happening today from 5:30 to 7:30 out at Más o Menos in Joshua Tree. The event is put on by the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) and the Mojave Desert Land Trust (MDLT). Representatives from both organizations will be there, and last month there were a lot of familiar faces from local conservation groups, along with residents who just love to recreate in the open desert. Más o Menos will be slinging drinks of all varieties and Friendo Burger is showing up and flipping burgers until they sell out.
That’s beginning at 5:30 tonight out at 66031 29 Palms Hwy in Joshua Tree.
An easy way to get caught up on some of those issues previously mentioned is listen to the second episode of Public Comments where I catch up with Mason Osgood from the NPCA – we talk about summer in the park, mining in 29, and how a change in language in the Endangered Species Act could spell trouble for threatened species like the Desert Tortoise.