Every Day a Day of Service

Not long ago I posted about my opportunity to clean up open desert near my sister's home.  Trash of all sorts -- plastic bags and cups, newspapers and cardboard boxes -- had been strewn about a couple of acres of habitat in the western Mojave.   It does not take much time or effort to make a significant difference, and two other organizations committed to clean communities and deserts have proven this.  It's our community. Our public lands.  Keeping the places we love in clean and pristine condition is our responsibility. 

One of the efforts I learned about is organized under the Facebook page called the One a Day Picker Uppers -- more of a lifestyle than an organization.  Christina Lange told me about this effort, and members of the group's Facebook page pledge to pick up at least one piece of litter each day.  There are already over 200 members, and photos from across the US of pieces of trash cleaned up by civic-minded folks. The idea behind this is that if each person took the time to pick up at least one piece of trash a day, we could make serious progress in keeping our communities and wildlands clean. 

This photo from the One a Day Picker Uppers Facebook page shows a single plastic bag found and disposed of by someone inspired to keep their desert clean.  Instead of ignoring the bag and letting it blow deep into our wild desert, a One a Day Picker Upper took the few seconds necessary to give it a proper disposal.

Separately, the Morongo Basin Conservation Association sponsored a stretch of Highway 62 in the California desert, picking up trash twice a month and even removing invasive plant species.  The group is catching highway litter before it drifts into our beautiful deserts and otherwise clean communities.  I can't express how much I appreciate these efforts -- I've been hiking in the middle of remote desert and come across a stray balloon or plastic bag caught in a creosote bush, probably blown miles from a highway or city.  I take it upon myself to collect everything I come across on a hike, so it is encouraging to know that there many other people out there acting as good stewards.

A photo of some of the Morongo Basin Conservation Association's volunteers during one of the group's recent clean-ups. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Many Plants Species in the Desert?

Would you expect that California's desert hosts gives the redwood forest a run for its money when it comes to plant biodiversity?  It's easy to take the desert for granted when all you want to do is zoom through it on the highway and get to your destination. But you are passing by an amazing and biologically diverse ecosystem.  There are at least 2,450 native plant species found in California's desert, according to a great article by Chris Clarke on desert life , posted at KCET. If you want to learn more about our amazing deserts, join Desert Biodiversity, a new organization dedicated to exploring, respecting and defending the deserts.
Read more

Mowing Vegetation as Mitigation: Trump Administration Practice Goes Unchallenged

Image
The Trump administration is again touting the practice of mowing thousands of acres of desert vegetation as environmentally-responsible, despite a preponderance of evidence to the contrary.  The draft environmental review of the Yellow Pine Solar project in southern Nevada claims that vegetation mowing - as opposed to bulldozing - will yield positive outcomes that are highly doubtful.   This positive framing of the construction practice misleads the public and decisionmakers and ignores decades of scientific research regarding the impacts of mechanized disturbance on desert wildlands.  According to the draft environmental review: "Mowing is becoming the standard on large site-type ROWs to prevent permanent impairment of public lands (as mandated by FLPMA) and in lieu of off-site mitigation... Mowing methods are designed to help preserve soils, biological soil crusts, soil seed banks, native perennial vegetation diversity and structure, and cacti and yucca species, and to resist
Read more

The Absurdity of the Cadiz Water Export Scheme

Image
The Department of Interior this month reversed a policy to make it easier for the Cadiz company to pump billions of gallons of water from an ancient Mojave Desert aquifer - killing off natural springs that wildlife depend upon - to ship that water to the lush landscaping of Orange County.   Cadiz still has other hurdles in its way, but the company's tenacity and willingness to line the pockets of politicians could spell doom for Mojave wildlife. Cadiz Calls it Conservation The Cadiz company has a contract to export nearly 16.3 billion gallons (yes, that is billion with a 'b') a year for 50 years from the Mojave to the Santa Margarita Water District ( SMWD ) in Orange County.  The Cadiz company claims that it will only pump water that would otherwise evaporate from a dry lake bed and that the aquifer will naturally recharge from rainfall, leaving no significant impacts on wildlife or groundwater levels.  According to Cadiz propaganda, this isn't a water export sche
Read more