The tiny fridge-filled room in Joshua Tree is one piece of a global effort to collect, categorize and keep the world’s plant seeds — before it’s too late. One of the most well-known examples of this effort is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, nicknamed the “doomsday vault,” tucked 100 meters into a mountain in a remote and icy corner of northern Norway. Svalbard holds duplicates of seed samples from around the world, with a goal of backing up seed collections elsewhere “to secure the foundation of our future food supply.”

All too often overlooked for their ecological value, the California’s Mojave and Colorado deserts feature stunning biodiversity, surpassing even many forest ecosystems. More than 2,400 native plant species, 72 occurring nowhere else on earth, reside in the windswept dunes, craggy mountains, life-giving waters, and other habitats that encompass the region. This landscape makes up 27% of the state’s land mass, sequesters 10% of its carbon, and is the nation’s largest relatively intact ecosystem outside of Alaska. This, however, belies the fragility of California’s deserts, which face unprecedented pressures from climate change and development.