I am pleased to report exciting new developments in our work in the Morongo Basin of California. Working with local partners, the Institute recently completed an extensive community outreach process to engage local citizens in helping to identify important community values and key land areas in the Basin as conservation priorities for protection.

This accomplishment is an important milestone in the effort to stitch together a comprehensive conservation plan that will protect wildlife habitat and key migration corridors in the 1,300 square miles of the project area located deep within the stark, desolate beauty of the Mojave Desert.

This latest success is all the more noteworthy when you consider that the Morongo Basin lies between Joshua Tree National Park and the U.S. Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms (which is the largest military training center in the nation), and a multitude of lightly populated but highly independent communities within San Bernadino County. Regional planning and community outreach in this vast web of overlapping government jurisdictions and private lands is not for the faint of heart!

The wildlife species targeted in the plan include mountain lion, bobcat, desert bighorn sheep, the desert tortoise and others. It is vital for wildlife to have room to roam for survival. And, when I say room to roam, in some cases, I mean hundreds of square miles - particularly when water resources are limited and food is not plentiful. Such is life for animals in the Mojave.

The Institute has been active in this region for more than 10 years, having first been encouraged to come to the area by local community champions Paul and Jane Smith, proprietors of the historic 29 Palms Inn. In 2008, we were brought into this project by community leaders to help lead and provide professional support to the Morongo Basin Open Space Group, which has been hard at work since 2006. The Open Space Group initiated regional land-use planning in response to booming growth and unsightly rural sprawl that had begun to spread across the area.

Our project manager in the Basin, Stephanie Weigel, is a highly trained land-use planner who mixes energy and enthusiasm with a disarming Midwest sensibility (she hails from South Dakota) to build relationships and achieve results. Stephanie is also deeply experienced in conservation work in California, and understands the workings of the government agencies in the region. Smartly, Stephanie has built an excellent working relationship with Curt Sauer, Superintendent of Joshua Tree NP and with the leadership of the Marine Corps base.  The Marine Corps base and Joshua Tree NP are also the economic anchors in the Basin.

The plan being promoted by the Open Space Group, an eclectic band of public and private agencies, nonprofits and spirited citizens, is ambitious and far-reaching. It includes providing more protection for lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM); protecting land in sensitive areas for wildlife; promoting community values; preventing and mitigating encroachment on the mission of the Marine Corps base by neighboring development; beefing up management of public lands to prevent further destruction by illegal off-highway vehicles, and encouraging communities to adopt wildlife protection measures into local codes and ordinances.

A plan is essential, but it must be informed and customized using local ideas and values. "You need the science, but you also need the community values," says Stephanie. "We need to know what local residents treasure about this region and their community." To maximize local participation, we decided to apply techniques and models pioneered by our partner, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.  Success was measured by the hundreds of residents who chose to engage in the process.

In our outreach, we found that local residents placed the highest value on Joshua Tree NP and - interestingly - their own backyards. "Folks here really understand the benefits associated with having Joshua Tree NP as a neighbor," says Weigel. "And, they also covet their own space within the community; their privacy and the quietness of the area."

Touring Morongo Basin and spending time with local officials, I am again reminded how crucial local involvement is to all aspects of our conservation work. We are fortunate to have the attention of the Joshua Tree NP officials, and also of the Marine base. The military has been a vital economic force in the region since the 1950s, and recognizes the importance of citizenship and community involvement. Our work - and future successes - in the region would not have been possible without the full support of these organizations, members of the Open Space Group and the local citizenry of Morongo Basin. I look forward to implementation of the plan.