California Joshua tree is not threatened, regulators say. It could bring more development

A view of the Milky Way is framed by Joshua trees at Joshua Tree National Park. The analysis determined that scientific evidence currently possessed by state wildlife authorities “does not demonstrate that populations of the species are negatively trending in a way that would lead the department to believe that the species is likely to be in serious danger of becoming extinct throughout all or a significant portion of its range in the foreseeable future.” Advocates for western Joshua trees vigorously objected to the recommendation. “But that is essentially what state biologists are asking us to do with western Joshua trees in distress.” As of this month, the entire range of the western Joshua tree remains in severe or extreme drought, and a recent National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report predicted those conditions may become the norm after 2030. On a recent morning, Cummings hiked across a mile-square nature preserve near Joshua Tree National Park created, in part, to give federally endangered desert tortoises and more than 1,000 western Joshua trees within its boundaries a fighting chance for survival. Now, the biggest threat is climate change, according to Cameron Barrows, a research ecologist at UC Riverside, who said he wanted to see Joshua trees listed because such protections “might act as a catalyst toward creation of land-use proposals that would benefit wildlife and developers alike.” In the meantime, environmentalists are hopeful the commission will still vote to list western Joshua trees.