The conservation plan is a requirement of the Western Joshua Tree Conservation Act that passed last year, making it the first law in the state to protect a species from the threats of climate change. The law also prohibits anyone from killing, damaging or removing a tree without a state permit.
The plan lists criteria and attributes to help identify land that should be prioritized for conservation, such as large areas with Joshua trees or areas with a high density of healthy and adult trees. It also suggests protecting regions where there is low risk of such threats as fires, invasive species and development, and where pollinators like moths or small mammal seed dispersers exist. It aims to identify these lands by December 2025 and permanently protect 70% of them by 2033.
The plan also calls on land managers and wildfire responders to create procedures to reduce and fight wildfires that threaten the species and their habitat, and develop measures to minimize impacts from rehabilitating burned areas. That includes protecting trees, replanting lost ones and other native species, and controlling invasives.
But as the proposed plan notes, its effectiveness and the survival of the trees will depend largely on whether humanity can limit and reduce the planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from burning coal, oil and gas that are causing climate change.
Under a business-as-usual scenario, climate change could wipe out most, if not all, of the tree’s habitat, Cummings said.
“Assuming we can keep to a mid-level emissions trajectory, we have a very good chance of saving the species if all the things outlined in this plan are carried out,” he said. “And primarily that’s doing what we can to protect as many of them as possible.”
The draft plan will have to be approved by the California Fish and Game Commission.
