Growing up in Los Angeles and the Inland Empire, Seed Bank Field Supervisor Ashley Soto noticed there was not much of a culture of outdoor recreation amongst the Latino and immigrant communities around her. That gap became even more apparent once she entered the conservation workforce, a field where people of color remain significantly underrepresented. In this personal essay, Ashley traces the barriers behind that disparity and calls for a conservation movement that embraces all communities and their ancestral connections to place.

How does life rearrange itself when simply stepping outside can be dangerous?

Collections Manager Corina Godoy has watched the Mojave Desert Seed Bank grow in real time, from a small effort without permanent staff to a science-forward program caring for millions of seeds. What can be learned from other seed banks at this stage in our development? Corina traveled to Oregon on a special research trip to find out.

MDLT’s herbarium was established in 2018 and now has over 500 specimens, representing a diversity of plant species from lands we steward across the California desert. Herbaria are vital resources for plant taxonomists, conservationists, and researchers. They provide plant specimens for inspection, material for chemical and genetic analysis, and detailed georeferenced data for the study of distribution and flowering patterns. Now our herbarium is going digital; Seed Bank Collections Manager Corina Godoy explains why this matters.

The Wilderness Act of 1964 was designed to preserve places "where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man." It protects landscapes from new roads, development, extraction, and mechanized travel—areas where plants and animals take priority over profits and human ambitions. What happens when these priorities change? Chief Storyteller Josh Jackson explores the unsettling ecological consequences of the federal government’s decision to build a border wall through the Jacumba Wilderness.

As a veteran, I learned the importance of protecting our country. Fifty years later, that idea still drives me. These days I advocate for veterans and work to protect the very land that once helped prepare me to serve.