ghostsofevolution | CTL 3C - Joshua Tree Baseline videos 2017 - pt 2 Mojave Preserve, Cima CA @ghostsofevolution | Uploaded May 2017 | Updated October 2024, 9 minutes ago.
Part 3 of 5 of Connie Barlow's 2017 series of "baseline" ecological filming of Joshua Tree habitats in California and southwestern Utah. This episode features the richest Joshua Tree habitat found anywhere: in Mojave National Preserve, along the Cima Road, near the Teutonia Peak Trail and White Cross World War 1 memorial. Baseline documentation is crucial for scientifically assessing habitat viability (and degradation) for Joshua Trees in future decades, owing to anthropogenic climate change.
UPDATE: Summer 2020 this section of the Mojave Preserve burned with devastating consequences for many of the towering, mature trees. Learn about that fire here: npca.org/articles/2640-what-the-fire-took#comment-5070750093 Note: I am not as pessimistic as the author of the NPCA fire essay, as I have witnessed prolific root suckering amid the horticultural plantings at the Kayenta subdivision of SW Utah (just over the mountains that have prevented Joshua Tree from moving farther poleward absent human assistance). Access these two final episodes in this Joshua Tree series to learn about the NE-most wild population in Utah and then to see the new plantings thriving beyond that range in Kayenta:
Pt. 3D: Baseline Documentation: SW Utah (2017) - youtu.be/dFk_ytXUHKc
Pt. 3E: Baseline Documentation: SW Utah Landscaping - youtu.be/nTegGDl05sQ
UPDATE 2021: This baseline video of Mojave Preserve can now help for monitoring restoration following the August 2020 Cima Dome fire that killed probably most of the trees in this video. An excellent report on the damage and prospects for recovery is, "Joshua Trees: An Uncertain Future For A Mojave Desert Icon" by Hilary Clark: nationalparkstraveler.org/2021/03/joshua-trees-uncertain-future-mojave-desert-icon
UPDATE 2023: Pepper Trail published his essay, "Requiem for the Joshua tree" at this url: thespectrum.com/story/opinion/2023/08/21/writers-on-the-range-requiem-for-the-joshua-tree/70641146007 Here is an excerpt:
"... Fewer than 10% of those burned in the Dome fire have since re-sprouted. Their fleshy fruits and seeds are not fire adapted. And massive efforts to plant Joshua tree seedlings in burned areas have had limited success.... Finally, and as a last resort, there has been discussion of “assisted migration,” moving Joshua trees northward in response to climate change.... To prepare for possible relocations, the National Park Service, with assistance from a youth conservation program, the Urban Conservation Corps, has collected over a million Joshua tree seeds from 47 populations. This work follows the example of a very old, and very large, collaborator, the Shasta ground sloth. This hulking bear-sized herbivore roamed the American West until about 11,000 years ago. Abundant sub-fossilized sloth dung found in caves throughout the Southwest prove that its diet was largely composed of foliage from Joshua trees, with plenty of undigested seeds mixed in. Researchers believe that the sloths were key to spreading Joshua trees to new locations in the Pleistocene.
• Music credit: Alan Tower "Flow"
Note: This 5-part series on Joshua Tree is a subset of Connie Barlow's ongoing "Climate, Trees, and Legacy" video documentation series on youtube (CTL), which can be accessed in full at thegreatstory.org/climate-trees-legacy.html
Note: In 2019 the L.A. Times editorial board advocated "threatened species" status for Joshua Tree. Based on her experience with Torreya Guardians (which uses an "exception" in the Endangered Species Act for citizens to move ahead on their own with assisting the northward migration of the endangered Florida Torreya), Barlow advocated non-listing of JT, along with encouragement of citizens and horticulturalists and scientists to begin experimental plantings north of its current range (assisted range expansion). See her advocacy beginning on page 13 here:
"Conservation in a Time of Climate Change: Rethinking the Value of Endangered Species Listings"
torreyaguardians.org/torreya-report-aug-2019.pdf
Part 3 of 5 of Connie Barlow's 2017 series of "baseline" ecological filming of Joshua Tree habitats in California and southwestern Utah. This episode features the richest Joshua Tree habitat found anywhere: in Mojave National Preserve, along the Cima Road, near the Teutonia Peak Trail and White Cross World War 1 memorial. Baseline documentation is crucial for scientifically assessing habitat viability (and degradation) for Joshua Trees in future decades, owing to anthropogenic climate change.
UPDATE: Summer 2020 this section of the Mojave Preserve burned with devastating consequences for many of the towering, mature trees. Learn about that fire here: npca.org/articles/2640-what-the-fire-took#comment-5070750093 Note: I am not as pessimistic as the author of the NPCA fire essay, as I have witnessed prolific root suckering amid the horticultural plantings at the Kayenta subdivision of SW Utah (just over the mountains that have prevented Joshua Tree from moving farther poleward absent human assistance). Access these two final episodes in this Joshua Tree series to learn about the NE-most wild population in Utah and then to see the new plantings thriving beyond that range in Kayenta:
Pt. 3D: Baseline Documentation: SW Utah (2017) - youtu.be/dFk_ytXUHKc
Pt. 3E: Baseline Documentation: SW Utah Landscaping - youtu.be/nTegGDl05sQ
UPDATE 2021: This baseline video of Mojave Preserve can now help for monitoring restoration following the August 2020 Cima Dome fire that killed probably most of the trees in this video. An excellent report on the damage and prospects for recovery is, "Joshua Trees: An Uncertain Future For A Mojave Desert Icon" by Hilary Clark: nationalparkstraveler.org/2021/03/joshua-trees-uncertain-future-mojave-desert-icon
UPDATE 2023: Pepper Trail published his essay, "Requiem for the Joshua tree" at this url: thespectrum.com/story/opinion/2023/08/21/writers-on-the-range-requiem-for-the-joshua-tree/70641146007 Here is an excerpt:
"... Fewer than 10% of those burned in the Dome fire have since re-sprouted. Their fleshy fruits and seeds are not fire adapted. And massive efforts to plant Joshua tree seedlings in burned areas have had limited success.... Finally, and as a last resort, there has been discussion of “assisted migration,” moving Joshua trees northward in response to climate change.... To prepare for possible relocations, the National Park Service, with assistance from a youth conservation program, the Urban Conservation Corps, has collected over a million Joshua tree seeds from 47 populations. This work follows the example of a very old, and very large, collaborator, the Shasta ground sloth. This hulking bear-sized herbivore roamed the American West until about 11,000 years ago. Abundant sub-fossilized sloth dung found in caves throughout the Southwest prove that its diet was largely composed of foliage from Joshua trees, with plenty of undigested seeds mixed in. Researchers believe that the sloths were key to spreading Joshua trees to new locations in the Pleistocene.
• Music credit: Alan Tower "Flow"
Note: This 5-part series on Joshua Tree is a subset of Connie Barlow's ongoing "Climate, Trees, and Legacy" video documentation series on youtube (CTL), which can be accessed in full at thegreatstory.org/climate-trees-legacy.html
Note: In 2019 the L.A. Times editorial board advocated "threatened species" status for Joshua Tree. Based on her experience with Torreya Guardians (which uses an "exception" in the Endangered Species Act for citizens to move ahead on their own with assisting the northward migration of the endangered Florida Torreya), Barlow advocated non-listing of JT, along with encouragement of citizens and horticulturalists and scientists to begin experimental plantings north of its current range (assisted range expansion). See her advocacy beginning on page 13 here:
"Conservation in a Time of Climate Change: Rethinking the Value of Endangered Species Listings"
torreyaguardians.org/torreya-report-aug-2019.pdf
