THE CALIFORNIA DESERT PROTECTION ACTTHE MOJAVE NATIONAL PRESERVE.pptVIP

THE CALIFORNIA DESERT PROTECTION ACT  THE MOJAVE NATIONAL PRESERVEAnnie Mancini California Desert 25,000,000 acres Over 100,000 archaeological sites 90 mountain ranges More than 760 different wildlife species California Desert Wilderness National Park systems Federal lands State parks California Desert History 1976 Congress designates 25 million acres as the California Desert Conservation Area. A combination of the Sonoran, Great Basin, and Mojave Deserts From Mexican border, north to Death Valley, and east to the Sierra Nevada Mountains 1986 Senator Alan Cranson (D-CA) is persuaded by the Sierra Club to introduce the bill. California Desert History 1992 Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) elected Feinstein and Boxer reintroduce bill to 103rd Congress 1994 CDPA is passed October 31, 1994 69-29 vote CDPA The CDPA “transferred over 3 million acres of the California Desert from BLM to NPS and designated nearly 8 million acres of wilderness on NPS and BLM lands…” “CDPA created the Mojave National Preserve and redesignated Death Valley and the Joshua Tree National Monuments as national parks.” -Executive Summary from Draft Environmental Impact Statement and General Management Plan CDPA Death Valley National Park + 1.2 million acres to Death Valley National Monument Joshua Tree National Park + 234,000 acres to Joshua Tree National Monument Mojave National Preserve 1,419,800 acres Mojave National Preserve Located in Southern California, it is a combination of the Great Basin, Sonoran, and Mojave Desert ecosystems. Of the 1.4 million acre reserve… 695,200 acres make up the Mojave Wilderness Designated by the Wilderness Act Part of the National Wilderness Preservation System Roughly half is designated as critical habitat for the desert tortoise Federally listed as “threatened” Mojave National Preserve 11 mountain ranges 4 dry lakes Cinder cones Badlands Washes Mesas Buttes Lava beds Caves Dunes Al