S1E20: California still doesn't know what to do about the western Joshua tree

0:00:00 - (Chris Clarke): This podcast was made possible by the generous support of our Patreon patrons. They provide us with the resources we need to produce each episode. You can join them at 90miles from needles.com Patreon.

0:00:25 - (Bouse Parker): The Sun is a giant blowtorch aimed at your face. There ain't no shade nowhere. Let's hope you brought enough water. It's time for 90 miles from Needles, the Desert Protection Podcast with your hosts, Chris Clark and Alicia pike.

0:00:43 - (Chris Clarke): Hey, welcome to 90 Miles from Needles. This is Chris. Late October is a wonderful time in the desert. Most of the time, the sun doesn't seem quite so murderous. You can actually be outside for more than five or 10 minutes at a time without taking your life in your hands. It feels welcoming outside. It feels like the tens of millions of acres of wild desert actually wants you to come and walk around in it.

0:01:16 - (Chris Clarke): It's a wonderful thing and I highly recommend it. In this episode, we're going to be talking about a little bit of a disappointment or setback. On October 12, the California Fish and Game Commission decided again not to vote on whether to protect the western Joshua tree as a threatened species under the California Endangered Species Act. So we figured it was time for an update. We've covered this issue before, and a week or so after the Fish and Game Commission punted on voting to protect the tree or not, Alicia and I met with Brendan Cummings from the center for Biological Diversity.

0:01:53 - (Chris Clarke): He is the guy that wrote the petition that got the whole protecting the Joshua tree under state law thing rolling a few years back. And he's been on our show before to talk about protecting the tree, the need, and the process. And he brought with him some analysis of why the vote didn't happen and what we can expect in the months to come. And since he came by in mid to late October, and like I mentioned, it was a beautiful day in the desert.

0:02:18 - (Chris Clarke): None of us wanted to stay inside a stuffy recording studio, especially when there's an entire desert beckoning. And so we sat outside and recorded our interview in the shade of a gigantic mesquite tree. And that means that you will hear some random bird song and the occasional large truck going by. Consider it a slice of life in the desert. We're also going to be bringing you some news about desert environmental issues. But first, a little bit of news about the podcast. You are listening to episode number 20 of season one.

0:02:49 - (Chris Clarke): A bit of a milestone there, at least if you use base 10 for your normal daily calculations. We are really pleased with what we've been able to do so far with the podcast and we have high hopes and serious plans to do even more cool stuff, bring more fascinating creatures and plants and causes and ecological phenomena and campaigns to your attention. And like everybody else, the end of the year gets a little nuts for both Alicia and me. So during the month of December, we're going to take time off from publishing new episodes.

0:03:25 - (Chris Clarke): We're not going to be taking time off entirely because we're going to be planning new episodes for the coming year as well as getting some of the walking around in the desert thing done that I was talking about a minute ago. As you listen to this, we've got three solid episodes in development, so we got a lot of good stuff already coming your way. We're just going to take the month of December to do some medium range planning, but we will start up again in January 2023 on the second Monday of the month and we will be with you through October and November. So don't rev your separation anxiety engines up just yet.

0:04:04 - (Chris Clarke): This is, by the way, as good a time as any to remind you that we couldn't do this without the financial support of our listeners. And if you are not one of those financially supporting listeners but want to be, you can go to 90 miles from needles.com patreon or 90 miles from needles.com kofi and at either of those addresses you can drop a little change on us and help us get the word out about protecting this irreplaceable desert. If donating money isn't your style, or if you've already been donating and you want to help us even more, you can also leave us a review on your favorite podcast engine. They really do help us get the podcast in front of people that are interested in the same kind of things you're interested in. Let's go to talk with Brendan.

0:05:49 - (Chris Clarke): Last week, the California Fish and Game Commission yet again did not decide whether or not to permanently list the Western Joshua Tree. Brendan Cummings from the center for Biological Diversity Just wondering how you feel about what transpired. What do you what you think is going to happen down the pike? Fill us in.

0:06:08 - (Brendan Cummings): Yeah, Last week's vote was disappointing, but in its own way, not at all surprising. The whole effort to protect the Joshua Tree is based on science and law and California law. The California Endangered Species act clearly dictates that decisions are to be made on the basis of the best available science. While the biological status of the Western Joshua Tree is clear and the existential threats it faces aren't really subject to any reasonable dispute, its legal status remains in purgatory.

0:06:42 - (Brendan Cummings): Two of the commissioners want to follow the science and the law and protect it. Two of the commissioners, at least as of June, recognize the threats facing it, but seem to consider the protections under cisa, the California Endangered Species act, too burdensome and wanted to find some alternate means of protecting it. And now we have a fifth commissioner appointed by the governor who could theoretically break that tie.

0:07:11 - (Brendan Cummings): The thing is, it's not as clear a 22 tie as one would think. While there is not at this moment three commissioners willing to vote to protect the Joshua tree as a threatened species, I also believe there are not three commissioners at this moment willing to strip them of the current interim protections they have as a candidate. There is a consensus among the commission that the tree needs some kind of protection.

0:07:41 - (Brendan Cummings): And the answer that everyone seems to be pointing towards is the legislature. The new commissioner, Anthony Williams, in fact, his previous job in the Newsom administration was as a legislative liaison, someone who worked on legislation for the governor. He was also, under Brown, a Fish and Game commissioner, and he left that position to go work for Newsom when the administrations changed. So one could view his appointment in that context of there needs to be a legislative fix.

0:08:17 - (Brendan Cummings): And he's a person who knows both the commission and the legislative process and the governor's office and has been deployed to try to get us to that result.

0:08:27 - (Chris Clarke): And just for the benefit of listeners that aren't maybe in California or don't pay a lot of attention to Sacramento, California legislature has two houses, Senate and the Assembly. Both have Democratic super majorities. You can actually get laws passed in California as opposed to the Congress right now.

0:08:45 - (Brendan Cummings): Yes, many laws get passed in California. And again, one thing about the politics of California, when you think of it, California is a single party state. So from outside of California, one can think, oh, it's all a Democratic supermajority. Of course you can get any good environmental law passed. The thing is, while it's a Democratic supermajority, they're still big D Democrats. And that makes passing good law difficult.

0:09:17 - (Brendan Cummings): And so one of the dynamics in the legislature is it's very hard for a truly bad anti environmental bill to get through the legislature. So if developers who don't want to see the Joshua tree get any protection tried to run a bill preventing it getting protection that almost certainly would not pass. And in fact, three years ago, there was an effort by Chad Mays, the local assembly member here in the Morongo Basin, to pass a bill that would have essentially prevented Joshua trees from getting candidate status or any Protection under CISA that died without ever gaining any traction whatsoever.

0:09:58 - (Brendan Cummings): On the flip side, a bill that would protect Joshua trees the same as CISA are, perhaps even stronger, would likely run into significant obstacles from moneyed interests in the state and probably die a quiet death in Appropriations committee. The only way legislation on Joshua trees is likely to pass in the coming legislative session is if it affords protection good enough that the environmental community is supportive and not trying to block the bill.

0:10:33 - (Brendan Cummings): And it provides permitting certainty to regulated entities. And it would also need at least tacit support from the governor's office, an indication that the governor would be accepting of such a bill. So if there's going to be an alternative to a vote of the Fish and Game Commission come February, we'll need to see a bill introduced in January in the California legislature that can clear those various thresholds.

0:11:05 - (Brendan Cummings): When you think of politics in California, it's really a single party state, and so any opposition to environmental protection has to be framed in big D, democratic terms. For instance, we've heard that protection of the Joshua Tree will slow down our transition to renewable energy by blocking large scale solar projects in the Mojave. Protecting Joshua Tree would also prevent good paying union jobs because those big projects in California at least, are largely done with union labor.

0:11:43 - (Brendan Cummings): Moreover, California has a housing crisis. We need to build a lot of new houses. Where can you build such houses? The high desert is one of the last places where large tracts of private developable land are there and are cheap. And so that's going to face a massive building boom. And so we've heard arguments that protection of the Joshua Tree will slow down or block the construction of affordable housing.

0:12:11 - (Brendan Cummings): We've even heard things from, like utilities arguing that because they need to constantly maintain their power lines, and that might require trimming Joshua trees, the permits and delay that that would cause will either prevent them from doing it, which means we'll have more wildfires, or will increase the cost of doing it, which means that the utility rates of low income people will go up, and that's inequitable.

0:12:40 - (Brendan Cummings): So in other words, I've heard every possible argument that like, protecting Joshua trees will exacerbate the climate crisis, lead to more homelessness, and raise utility bills, particularly of poor people. Of course, all those really boil down to corporations arguing that they should be able to maximize profit and that the inconvenience of the Joshua Tree, if it's fully protected the way it should be, will prevent them from doing so.

0:13:07 - (Brendan Cummings): So at the end of the day, what we're dealing with is an inconvenient species. The hearing was closed to public comment except for representatives of tribal governments.

0:13:20 - (announcer): Danielle Guterres, you need to unmute yourself. Go ahead please.

0:13:32 - (Danielle Gutierrez): Joshua trees. They're very sacred to the nma, Tova, Wahama, Tos and our relatives in Payahanadu, the Ouns Valley and surrounding areas. My good friends of the Kern Valley Indian Community Chairperson Bob Robinson and Mr. Richard Arnold of Paiutes were unavailable for this meeting but have spoken during the tribal listening session and shared their viewpoints and traditional ecological knowledge as did other tribes during that meeting in August.

0:13:59 - (Danielle Gutierrez): As a tribe's historic preservation officer of Toba Wahammatus, also known as federally recognized Big Panute tribe of the Ons Valley where we are requesting that the western Joshua tree be listed as threatened under csa. This tree belongs and makes the traditional landscapes of many tribes within their regions. It is a resource in these desolate lands by our creator to sustain us in our lives. They are used as medicines, clothing, tool resources, habitat for many various species of birds, tortoises, butterflies, moths, hummingbirds.

0:14:32 - (Danielle Gutierrez): It is in its itself an ecosystem in a vast landscape. It is a resource you ceremonial. It served as protection for our people during the forced march in the 1800s. It provided shade and shoes for our people driven out of their land with no shoes on. We owe them protection for being destroyed. They saved our lives when we were there. To be destroyed by soldiers, miners, trappers, invaders into our lands.

0:14:59 - (Danielle Gutierrez): These western Joshua trees are already battling climate change, fires, destruction of construction, greed of developments on lands for money, unnecessary destruction by agencies that are to be protecting these lands in the form of solar. Going green while destroying green. To me that is not green energy. The killing of these magnificent trees will destroy our ecosystems and landscapes. That has already taken a hit for man made destruction and climate change.

0:15:29 - (Danielle Gutierrez): Help us to keep our world intact by listing the western Joshua trees as an endangered species. Who better to work in co management for wildlife, plants, trees other than those that hold them sacred While hunting, gathering, growing by restoration and utilizing traditional ecological knowledge to keep things intact from being destroyed. We have a future that we need to protect in our way. It's seven ways seven years of generations this could be wiped out so easily. Once you start taking out a portion of that circle from our life.

0:16:08 - (Danielle Gutierrez): So many animals are already going extinct. Species are being damaged not to be be around anymore. They serve a purpose. Everything that's listed on this agenda of these animals, these creatures, they were put here for us to survive and they need our protection. And I'm also talking for all the rest of the animals and the insects and the flowers that are on your guys agenda. And I really hope you guys take into consideration of listing this important factor in a landscape that is beautiful to us, in a landscape that is defined and understood by the people of the lands for thousands and thousands years.

0:16:50 - (Danielle Gutierrez): We are the natural landscapers of these areas along with the teachings of Creator and we hold that very dear to us. And I appreciate your time for listening.

0:17:56 - (Alicia Pike): I just keep thinking of that phrase. Only when all the water is gone and all the fish are gone and the air you cannot breathe will we figure out that we cannot eat money. So the last meeting was a stalemate.

0:18:10 - (Brendan Cummings): Again not quite a stalemate. There there was a consensus that another vote was not a good idea. The commissioners who voted no previously, I don't think they wanted to be put on the spot and to vote no. And then the other main reason invoked was the new commissioner who was seated really only a week before or less than a week before to give him a fair opportunity to actually come up to speed on the issue. There are literally thousands upon thousands of pages of documents in the administrative record.

0:18:50 - (Brendan Cummings): There's multiple hours of testimony from the June commission meeting and previous meetings. And so he needed more time to to absorb all that information. So that all converged into the path of least resistance was a vote to not vote and a vote to delay it. Not to the next meeting in December, but to the February meeting. And the main advantage of it being in February versus December, if there's going to be legislation, it will almost be certainly known by the time of the February meeting. February is the deadline for new bills. The legislative session starts up again in January.

0:19:32 - (Brendan Cummings): So my hope is come January we will have a Western Joshua Tree Conservation act or something similar to that we can announce that we can feel really good about and that everyone who cares about joshua trees in the desert can get behind. Whether that will actually take shape and then next two or three months remains to be seen. But it was pretty implicitly suggested by the commissioners at the vote where pretty much every one of them is like, if not cisa, what? And everyone was like maybe legislation.

0:20:03 - (Brendan Cummings): So there's a hope among some of them that the issue goes away by the California legislature. Passing a bill to protect the species protection has to be significant enough to at least be satisfying to people like myself and the many other voices who've said status quo management of the species is untenable. We need better management and we also need climate informed conservation planning for the high desert.

0:20:32 - (Chris Clarke): More broadly, and we'll be back after the break.

0:20:39 - (Bouse Parker): Desert news for October 24, 2022 the.

0:20:43 - (Chris Clarke): Atacama Desert in Chile, where between you and me, I really need to go. It gets half an inch of rainfall a year. For perspective here in Twentynine Palms, where we've had a little bit of rain in the last few months, but for the two years before that, we were suffering through the worst drought in 1500 years. We still got 2 inches of rain in those two years. That's four times what the Atacama gets in a typical year. Nonetheless, when the winter rains come in the Atacama and provide that luxurious half an inch of rain a year, almost 200 species of flowers grow in the Atacama that are all highly adapted to the extremely low precipitation. The good news is the government of Chile has decided to recognize this wonderful plant biodiversity by announcing a new national park.

0:21:27 - (Chris Clarke): On Sunday, October 2, Chile's President Gabriel Boric announced the creation of the Desierto Florida Parque Nacional, AKA the Flowering Desert National Park. President Boric added that the creation of the park is a way to advance in the path of sustainability, and he was joined at the ceremony announcing the park by Marcos Lopez, the mayor of Copiapo, a nearby city. Mayor Lopez said that the announcement provides an enormous incentive for sustainable development of the tourism industry, which I think means I need to get there in a hurry before the tourism industry does.

0:22:04 - (Chris Clarke): In domestic news, the Department of Energy announced $14 million in funding for researchers to study how solar energy infrastructure interacts with wildlife and ecosystems. 26 states will hold studies of the interactions of mammals, birds, pollinators and other species with solar energy facilities. In announcing the funding, US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said DOE is committed to ensuring that renewable energy deployment protects natural environments. We here at 90 miles from Needles will believe it when we see it.

0:22:35 - (Chris Clarke): Meanwhile, as we reported recently, the Great Salt Lake in Utah faces rampant diversions of water for unsustainable social and industrial use, and that has badly imperiled the iconic lake, not to mention threatening the health of the frontline communities that surround the lake. A state representative has a plan to save the lake and the drought stricken frontline communities that surround it. Because this is a Republican legislator in the Utah Legislature, that plan doesn't involve using less water or anything sensible like that.

0:23:06 - (Chris Clarke): Instead, Representative Stephen Lund floated an idea at the Legislature's Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Interim Committee of drilling deep into the earth for groundwater beneath the Great Salt Lake, pumping that highly saline water up to the surface. And then since the groundwater is much saltier than the water that's already in the lake, which is itself saltier than the ocean. Lundt proposes building modular molten salt nuclear reactors small enough to fit on semi tractor trailers to desalinate the groundwater and pump it into the lake.

0:23:40 - (Chris Clarke): Lund says he thinks there may be 1 billion acre feet of water in this aquifer. Matthew Mamet, who's an associate professor at Brigham Young University working with Lund, says that about 86 such modular nuclear reactors devoted to desalination of groundwater could fill Lake Powell from bottom to top in about 14 months, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, which we will link to in the show notes, Lund had a parting comment in proposing this bill to the Utah Legislature.

0:24:08 - (Chris Clarke): He said this desalination also works with coal fired power plants. Just as an FYI, that definitely seems more straightforward and more sensible than just using less water. Finally, our previous episode talked about the Yellow Pine Solar Project, which is in the process of tearing down about five square miles of old growth Mojave Desert put in solar panels near Pahrump, Nevada. In that episode, a number of speakers that we recorded mentioned that Yellow Pine was only the first such project to be approved for construction in the Pahrump Valley. On 21 October, the BLM announced that it is preparing an Environmental Impact Statement and Regional Management Plan amendment for the Rough Hat Clark County Solar Project, which would cover 2,400 acres with solar panels in the Pahrump Valley between Yellow Pine and the town of Pahrump. Wildlife that would be impacted would include desert tortoise and eastern Joshua trees.

0:24:59 - (Chris Clarke): Since this is early in the NEPA process, the BLM is looking for scoping comments, basically asking the public for feedback on what they should be looking at. The deadline for those comments is December 5th, and look at our show notes for a link to the appropriate page on the BLM planning website. Basin and Rangewatch.org is an awfully good source for more information on the Rough Hat Clarke county project, and there will be a link to them in our show notes as well.

0:25:28 - (Alicia Pike): Coming up next, we continue our conversation on protecting the Western Joshua Tree.

0:25:42 - (Petey): Hello, I'm Petey Mesquiti, host of Growing Native from KXCI Tucson. Each week since 1992, I've been sharing stories, poems and songs about flora, fauna, family and the glory of living in the borderlands of Southern Arizona. Recent episodes of Growing Native are available@kxci.org Apple Podcasts and PRX. The desert is beautiful, my friends. Yeah, it is.

0:26:10 - (Bouse Parker): You're listening to 90 miles from Needles, the Desert Protection Podcast the desert does not exist just so that Jared Leto can sell skin care products.

0:26:20 - (Alicia Pike): Thank you for joining us. We are back with more 90 miles from Needles. I really struggle to understand why the general public and legislators, they need so much convincing that something like the tree, Joshua Tree needs to be protected. I was reading an article yesterday. It was an opinion essay, but the writer said that since 1970, we've lost 70% of the animal biodiversity in the world in just 50 years.

0:26:50 - (Chris Clarke): We're very obviously by the science in an age of extinction, and how are we not paying attention to this? And it's terribly upsetting when people just demean the Joshua tree like it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't matter. What does it matter? And it's like every single thing on this planet matters. It's all a part of the same system. And I just don't understand why that's not embraced more commonly. If I had 2 cents to throw on the table, I'd have that sound effect entered in there.

0:27:19 - (Brendan Cummings): Yeah. Joshua trees have an advantage over many species that are facing existential threats. And they're well known, they're famous, they're charismatic, they're iconic, and whatever other cliches I could say about them. And there's many species we are almost certain to lose in the coming decade or two. Quietly, largely unnoticed. The Joshua trees are big enough, appreciated enough, that we will notice. We're already noticing the loss of them. And some of that loss is very clear to everyone. If you see Joshua trees bulldozed to make a warehouse in Hesperia or the Victor Valley, or if you see them cut down to make an Airbnb in Yucca Valley or Joshua Tree, it's obvious that's happening and that's somehow wrong. But it's also the more subtle harms to the Joshua Tree brought on by climate and drought that are harder to see and why many people might not think that they are actually threatened, you can come to the Morongo Basin and you can see tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Joshua trees that look apparently healthy.

0:28:33 - (Brendan Cummings): It's not until you start looking closely and counting and being like, have I seen any juvenile Joshua trees? Have I seen any Joshua trees less than a foot high? And the answer quite probably is no. Are very few. And that's evident to us here. If you go to other parts of the West Mojave area around Atalanto, it already feels post apocalyptic. The Joshua trees there are just. It's a zombie forest. Wow.

0:29:02 - (Brendan Cummings): Standing dead trees. But you can go to other areas further north and see just these lush Joshua Tree woodlands, and all seems right in the world. And I think that gave political cover for people for whom the Joshua Tree is an inconvenient species. To make an argument that's not really threatened. There's millions of them occurring across millions of acres. If the Joshua tree is threatened, if we declare this species threatened by climate change, then isn't really every single species threatened by climate change?

0:29:34 - (Brendan Cummings): And what do we do? List them all? I can appreciate how that's an intuitively appealing argument, but species are different. The Joshua Tree, unfortunately, is very much on the sensitive end of the spectrum in terms of the impacts of climate, even in the best of conditions. The convergence of circumstances, the sprouted seed becoming a seedling, growing up, surviving long enough to itself set seeds, is so improbable it only happens a couple of times a century, and it only takes the remainder of this century for that process to be disrupted enough that we lose the species.

0:30:22 - (Chris Clarke): Do we have a track record for the new commissioner? Has he voted in ways we like or dislike in the past? When he was on the commission, when.

0:30:32 - (Brendan Cummings): Commissioner Williams was appointed by Brown about eight years ago, I believe it was 2014, it was right when I was in the midst of a really intense campaign in front of the commission, one that also started in Joshua Tree, the effort to ban bobcat trapping statewide. And he came in along with another commissioner late in the process. But he was fair, open minded, listened to our arguments, and ultimately was one of the votes to ban bobcat trapping in the state.

0:31:05 - (Brendan Cummings): So on that grounds, I would say he demonstrated fairness and open mindedness. Of course, the economics of bobcat trapping very, very different from those of Joshua tree protection. There it was fewer than 100 trappers effectively being subsidized by the state versus here, it's probably at least 10,000, maybe more developable parcels in the West Mojave that have Joshua trees on them, each owned by someone who wants to turn that land into a commodity and and cease a listing, is highly inconvenient. To that end, among the commissioners I've seen, he very much listens to and takes into serious consideration the economic implications of environmental protective measures.

0:31:59 - (Brendan Cummings): At its core, by law, CISA requires decisions based solely upon science. So I trust he's smart enough, he's well versed enough in climate science and whatnot that he would recognize that they are threatened. Whether he would in fact vote to protect them as such, I have my doubts.

0:32:17 - (Chris Clarke): I was hoping you were going to say, I have confidence, and then you Went right in the other direction.

0:32:21 - (Brendan Cummings): No. If you listen the recording of the commission meeting was just posted online yesterday or this morning and I've yet to re listen to it. But one of the things he said when talking about the volume of literature and other things that have been written in the on the Joshua Tree and at the hearings that something along the.

0:32:42 - (Anthony Williams): Lines of I don't know how long we're. What the motion might be in terms of a delay on this decision, but I would appreciate as much time as I could possibly get as a member of the commission because I am certainly not comfortable. I wouldn't be comfortable today supporting listing. I would hope that I would be comfortable with whatever decision after looking at the record and understanding what else is happening at some point in the future.

0:33:09 - (Chris Clarke): That's right.

0:33:09 - (Brendan Cummings): And I think it was a telegraphed message. Right.

0:33:12 - (Chris Clarke): He also had the response to somebody who is a developer or developer's representative.

0:33:18 - (Anthony Williams): That said I appreciate that the city and other local governments within the range have been communicating with commission. I understand the concerns. I understand the balance that the issues that were raised terms of as we look at climate impacts on the tree. The point that was made by the city and others was that by listing it you might actually increase climate impacts due to traffic and moving jobs further away from the residents of your communities.

0:33:53 - (Anthony Williams): I understand that. I appreciate that. I don't know if you were planning to say more about that, but I just want you to know and acknowledge that I understand those arguments. I heard them loudly and clearly.

0:34:04 - (Chris Clarke): So that was. I was wondering whether that was an indication of his sensibilities or him trying to cover his butt or him being.

0:34:12 - (Brendan Cummings): A very good politician.

0:34:13 - (Chris Clarke): Yeah.

0:34:14 - (Brendan Cummings): Yeah. There one thing to remember at the hearing. The hearing was closed to public comment except for representatives of tribal governments and was clearly on the agenda and otherwise. But there is one rather vocal individual who showed up demanding to speak. And so in some level Commissioner Williams response was in response to his presence. No, you're not going to get to speak. But I'm familiar with your arguments so I wouldn't read too much into that. My expectation is most people who tuned into the Fish and Game Commission hearing last week to hear Joshua trees logged off once the Joshua Tree issue was closed.

0:34:53 - (Brendan Cummings): I would highly recommend anyone interested not just in the western Joshua trees, but what wildlife plant biodiversity management in 21st century California is like to watch the Fish and Game Commission meeting from last week. Certainly the Joshua Tree item which was the first substantive item covered, but also the one immediately afterwards on the clear Lake hitch a Highly endangered native fish in Clear Lake and its tributaries in California.

0:35:30 - (Brendan Cummings): Those two issues collectively, I think, reflect a moment of a paradigm shift in the operations of the commission and the department in terms of the importance and the role and the contributions of tribes and native voices more generally in the management of California's natural heritage.

0:35:56 - (Chris Clarke): In some ways, though, it's long overdue and is sort of part of the zeitgeist that's been developing. It seems on the part of the Fish and Game Commission to have been triggered by comments by Nicholas Hummingbird a couple of meetings ago, who took them to task rightly for not soliciting sufficient native feedback and also provided the people that didn't want to vote for protection with a convenient reason, which I don't think was Nick's intention at all. But it's.

0:36:26 - (Chris Clarke): However it happened, it's certainly a welcome development.

0:36:29 - (Brendan Cummings): Yeah.

0:36:29 - (Danielle Gutierrez): Next speaker will be Nicholas Hummingbird. Nicholas, go ahead, please.

0:36:38 - (Nicholas Hummingbird): I want you to listen to that word hum we chua. That is the Kaweah word for the Joshua Tree, a word that was taught to me by my great grandfather. I'm of Korea descendant. I am an individual representing myself today. I am really appalled at the lack of indigenous participation in this meeting and on this particular subject. Numerous agencies and other private interest groups have had their say, well heard and well represented, and there are an abundance, yet there has been hardly any Indigenous recognition of.

0:37:10 - (Nicholas Hummingbird): I want to directly call out the director to CDFW and his in his comments, which have been widely circulated that nothing is in abundance today. Not water, not plant life, certainly not animal life. They were abundant when they're in the past under the care and stewardship of indigenous peoples. How convenient it is to eradicate or try to eliminate our voice or participation. All of the abundance has continuously turned into sacrificial zones and overall continuous genocides against people, plants and animals.

0:37:41 - (Nicholas Hummingbird): There is certainly an abundance of greed and entitlement in this meeting today. Today, protecting the Joshua Tree will certainly protect one of the smallest desert ecosystems on earth that is also most abundant in plant Life, with over 17 to 2000 species of plants alone. Additionally protecting the bighorn sheep and the desert tortoise. We cannot protect this one particular species. Surely there is no hope for the rest of them.

0:38:04 - (Nicholas Hummingbird): As an indigenous person, you see my photograph with my son, my son Tahui, who I pick up tomorrow, who I'm going to look into his eyes with pride as a descendant, as somebody who's been here for thousands of years, I'm going to tell him straight up, I've done. And I can do everything I possibly can to ensure his survival. And the survival of all my ancestors were continuously sacrificed and killed for, because that has not stopped. And so historical context is needed now more than ever because we seemingly want to rush into a future while repeating nothing but the past.

0:38:42 - (Nicholas Hummingbird): With that, I hope you will protect the Joshua Tree, include more indigenous participation and more. Thank you and have a good night.

0:38:51 - (Brendan Cummings): Yeah. Government officials often do the right thing for the wrong reasons. With Joshua trees, more Native consultation at the time in June felt like it was being invoked more as an excuse for delay than for the purposes of meaningful solicitation and contribution of input. But it also was clear that it was the right thing to do. And through this process, I think it really is shifting how the commission and department deal with the input of tribes.

0:39:25 - (Brendan Cummings): Now there's two elements of input. There's listening, having a listening session, and then there's actually following the recommendation and advice of the tribes. And with the Western Joshua Tree, the overwhelming weight of Native testimony, of tribal government testimony was, this tree needs protection. And I hope at the end of the day, either the commission itself or the California legislature, or perhaps both, act on that input and those recommendations and do take serious steps to finally protect the Western Joshua Tree.

0:40:04 - (Chris Clarke): What can listeners do to help? Obviously, going to center for Biological Diversity's website and signing up for action alerts and throwing some money your way is going to be a good thing. But aside from that, which they should be doing anyway for most issues, what can people do to help persuade the Fish and Game Commission? Help you persuade the Fish and Game Commission?

0:40:24 - (Brendan Cummings): Yeah. When I often get asked that question and it's difficult to be truly honest about it, like in some forms, such as the Fish and Game Commission in June as well as its meetings in 2020, when we got candidacy, heavy involvement by the public, people showing up, people testifying, people writing letters, but people also doing their sort of own research and storytelling played a tremendous part. Like, the reason I'm confident Joshua Trees will never go back to the pre 2020status quo of management or lack of management by counties and local jurisdictions is that members of the High Desert community put on a compelling case with lots of examples to demonstrate how bad local management was.

0:41:21 - (Brendan Cummings): And that convinced all the commissioners. And so we've raised the floor of what protection Joshua trees are going to get going forward. So that role was absolutely essential then, like with many processes, it shifts. It went into a year and a half of dormancy while the department worked up in status review. And rather than trying to keep people doing things during that window just for the sake of doing it. My advice to people would be find other issues to work on.

0:41:51 - (Brendan Cummings): This will come back and we'll need you all to weigh in again in a couple years time. And it did. And so for the June meeting, they had over 200 people participate. Again, overwhelming support for protecting the tree. That really helps. Right now we're in a sort of similar lull where the comment window in front of the commission is closed for everyone but representatives of tribal governments. So anyone out here listening who's part of a tribal government by all means write a letter or otherwise contact the commission to express support for Joshua trees. But there's really not that much to be done until come February. And even there, the record's closed. No public testimony.

0:42:43 - (Brendan Cummings): Come January, we hopefully will have legislation. If we do, then the legislative process, like so many things, is simultaneously participatory and combined with exclusionary insider politics. And there'll be a lot of each. But there will be opportunities to contact your legislators, implore them to support the bill or to support strengthening the bill or prevent weakening of the bill. There will be committee hearings to show up and testify at. There will be a whole range of things we can do, both virtually and in person and Sacramento related to protecting the Joshua tree.

0:43:19 - (Brendan Cummings): And then there's also the real world things you can do. In addition to that. I found participating in the replanting of Eastern Joshua trees at Sima Dome was a really wonderful and to me impactful experience. Even though I realized it's only a couple dozen seedlings at most that I participated, participated in planting that, that felt very real and tangible and I encourage people to do that. If you live in an area with Joshua trees, protect them, Pull up the invasive grasses to reduce fire risk in the area. Join volunteer crews with the park service or the land Trust or whomever doing efforts to protect them in the from fire by removing invasive grasses.

0:44:07 - (Brendan Cummings): Or sign up for some of the programs that are much more proactive where there's actually planting efforts going on. The little things matter. When you see a snake on the road and you scoot it across the road so it doesn't get run over, you're probably not having a population level impact, but for that one snake, you're having a very significant impact. And I'd like to think that a handful of the Joshua trees that we had started will be the generation that outlives us and helps repopulate Sima Dome.

0:44:40 - (Alicia Pike): I've got a cluster of about six baby Joshua trees that are A couple years old. And it's funny because my husband's. I don't know where we want to plant them. We better be sure that where we plant them, we don't ever want to touch them again because we're not going to be able to.

0:44:53 - (Brendan Cummings): But.

0:44:53 - (Alicia Pike): Yeah, I'm getting itchy. It is the planting season. I'm going to be putting some Joshua trees in the ground over in Desert Heights.

0:45:00 - (Brendan Cummings): Excellent. Yeah, excellent. Yeah. Yeah. That's one of the protection of some species like the Joshua tree, and all legal protective efforts had things in them that are completely obvious and other things that, like, okay, how do we make this work in the most rational way? And one of the things going forward, whether it's legislatively or in conservation planning with the state, is to try to work out clear protocols so that people who want to help conserve Joshua trees by sprouting them and planting them on their land or can get clear instructions and this is what you can do, this is how best to do it and things of that sort. So that there is. So that is.

0:45:44 - (Brendan Cummings): We want to see as much active conservation effort. In an era before climate change was omnipresent as a biodiversity threat, the best way to protect nature was to leave it alone. In a rapidly changing climate, species like the Joshua tree, just leaving them alone is not good enough. We're going to have to affirmatively do things to help them, and we want to figure out what those things are and set up a regulatory system that encourages and fosters all those affirmative conservation actions that Joshua trees and unfortunately so many other species will need.

0:46:25 - (Chris Clarke): That echoes something I feel like David Smith said in our recent interview where he said, ten years ago, the ideas of stewardship have completely changed in my mind because I have to. Like you're saying, I couldn't be hands off. Now we have to remove invasive grasses for the fire reason. Now we have to do things that we never thought we would have to do or that 10 years ago we would have never done because it wouldn't have been stewardship.

0:46:48 - (Chris Clarke): And then back to some earlier comments of yours. He mentioned. I've seen presentations where they talk about Joshua trees are retreating up into refugia in regards to the populations dwindling and people saying, I don't see that happening. David Smith is a singular data set where he's been in that park, visiting it for 30 years, and he can see with his own bare eyes the trees retreating and the numbers dwindling.

0:47:14 - (Chris Clarke): And I just wanted to throw those out there. These sentiments are. They are real. I don't know what more real data people need to be enthusiastic about stewardship towards the planet in one way or another, whether it's scooting snake off the road, cleaning up trash, planting trees or what have you. Yeah, it's definitely don't do nothing. How to do something so in the age of mass extinction that you're working so hard to fight, what keeps you going at the end of the day.

0:47:47 - (Brendan Cummings): That that's a question that one would think I would have had a well rehearsed answer for since I often get asked why does biodiversity matter? Or yeah, in the face of climate change, how do you maintain hope? I don't have a default answer other than I have always felt most hopeful when working in some sense of collective in a community effort to either fight the bad or advance the good. And this effort to protect Joshua trees, for me it almost occurred as an afterthought, like my role at my organization. I've been there so long in many ways I'm more bureaucrat than litigator these days.

0:48:34 - (Brendan Cummings): But after reading enough of the science, it finally was like yeah, had that little light click off while walking on a hike through Mojave Desert Land Trust property about cease a listing and whether it was possible and winnable and what it would do. I would say the the nights I researched and read obscure and old and all sorts of articles about Joshua trees and the desert and climate change, it became a self motivating thing. The sort of the consumption of knowledge that feels like I'm building a tool set or building the tools or the weapons or whatever the right metaphor is to go forth and fight to protect some piece of the planet, whether it's individual trees or the whole ecosystem. That's my base motivation. But yeah, it can obviously feel bleak. I can go for a hike in the national park and be reminded and how beautiful and wonderful it is and have that hope that there's a big solid block of land, that it's going to get hotter and more flammable, but it's not going to get bulldozed away and given that sort of bedrock level of protection we can do all sorts of things to ensure as much of it survives as possible.

0:49:49 - (Brendan Cummings): Then I can drive through the Victor Valley and Hesperia and areas like that are already so fragmented and new warehouses are like popping up like mushrooms in the rain and is there any hope out here? Fortunately for the Joshua Tree, at least they are, to use the phrase of the opponents, widespread and abundant still. And so there's enough of them that if we start acting now, we can do what's necessary to save them. And if we do all the right things to save Joshua trees, we've also done most of what we need to make our high desert communities more livable, more enjoyable, more sustainable, just all around better places to live in the difficult decades ahead.

0:50:42 - (Chris Clarke): Brendan, thanks for being with us again. It's always a pleasure to have you.

0:50:45 - (Brendan Cummings): Yeah, sure. Happy to be on the show and thanks for having me.

0:50:49 - (Chris Clarke): Okay, that's it for this week. I'm Chris Clarke.

0:50:51 - (Alicia Pike): And I'm Alicia Pike.

0:50:53 - (Chris Clarke): We will see you next time on 90 Miles from Needles.

0:51:00 - (Bouse Parker): This episode of 90 Miles from Needles was produced by Alicia pike and Chris Clark. Editing by Chris, podcast artwork by the devilishly handsome Martin Mancha. Theme music is by Bright side Studio. Other music by Slipstream and Envato Elements. Follow us on Twitter or on Instagram @90element Am I from Needles? And on Facebook at facebook.com 90 miles from Needles Listen to us at 90miles from needles.com or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also hear us@other desertradio.com

0:51:32 - (Bouse Parker): Help us by leaving a review on your favorite podcast app. Support this podcast by visiting us at 90miles from needles.com Patreon and making a monthly pledge of as little as 5 bucks. Or visit 9zeromiles from needles.com Kofi to make a one time contribution. Our supporters enjoy privileges including early access to episodes. Crucial support for this podcast came from Tad Coffin and Lara Roselle. All characters on this podcast are brighter in the desert sky. No need to wonder or justify.

0:52:05 - (Alicia Pike): This is Baus Parker reminding you to get out for a desert hike now that it's cool.

0:52:10 - (Alicia Pike): See you next time.

0:53:21 - (Brendan Cummings): Sit, heart, sit. Good dog.