LA Times: Hundreds of Joshua trees were scorched during the shutdown
In June, the Mojave Desert Land Trust, a conservation nonprofit, partnered with Joshua Tree to grow more than 3,000 plants of 29 common species — including hundreds of Joshua trees — from seeds gathered in the park. The plan is to transfer them to the park next fall.
The park has a small nursery of its own, but after contending with significant damage from large fires in recent years, officials want an arsenal of plants to respond efficiently, said Patrick Emblidge, the land trust’s plant conservation program manager. In the Mojave, he added, restoration is more successful if plants suited for specific areas of the park are used and the response is prompt.
“You think of desert as pretty sparse, but natural plant density in the desert is, I think, somewhere around 3,000 plants per acre, and these fires cover hundreds of acres,” he said. “So to get back to that natural ecosystem, vegetative structure, you really do need a ton of plants.”
Emblidge described the Black Rock fire as “exactly why we’re doing this project.”