California Desert Protection Act

these protests just like elmer rice dried lake thirty miles east of hyundai might be able to prevent possible a year by twenty seven year old bryce adams of lancaster and shows off his nineteen sixty five bucks wagon body and i've fabricated a lot of our stuff back fifty seven cents and he had to be used at major area profitably vehicles were going to be divided by anywhere on the twenty five acres like it does about a hundred and twenty five thousand people every year many of them want their kid is selling a firefighter from victor bell he's here with his ten year

old daughter that's a real confidence builder she was able to bring her first trophy with some pictures and writing here in her fifth grade class really did a lot for a sting yeah so i mean so much is so near and your heart think about families seven million acres of the desert are opened off highway vehicles it seems like a lot of voters point out that it's about half of what they had twenty years ago and they're mostly restricted to trails motorcycle riders say there's only a few places that can accommodate races i agree with preserving some of the real special areas of the desert red rock canyon the original death valley national monument that increasing the boundaries to areas that are really not pristine desert areas is typical of the land grab happened during the demonstration you know i mean you look around this is that the desert eileen anderson sees it differently the botanist from the california native plant society says look a

little closer and even what seemed to be plain parts of the desert are fascinating that's the desert now of beautiful orange flower and nice yellow centered plant it's a great food for desert tortoise on a patch of land near red rock state park she points out tiny pink flowers called desert calico lavender desert astor's and creosote bushes sporting yellow balloons and little fuzzy fruits plans usually have some sort of glance or some sort of a hair's better rights attach the police service and what this does is it sort of principled when barrier so that's when the wind blows over the leave a lot of the water doesn't lead to the little wars in the plant leaves it acts as a sort of a battle a year anderson says although the plans are adapted to harsh desert conditions they're vulnerable to human intrusion especially away to bees she runs her hand over the soil in touch the silence see that it forms these

very thin plates on the surface of the soil he put under a microscope and see that there's actually living organisms near that bind the soil particles together on the surface you can see here where we stepped we disrupted that crust so now the soil particles underneath are free to blow in the wind the algae and fungi that hold the soil together we grow so slowly that scientists say some areas ripped up by vehicles could take a century to heal anderson says that's why it's important to limit the use of vehicles in many parts of the desert she says she supports having designated places for drivers and riders to play a lot of people are writing where they shouldn't she points to a belly that's crisscrossed with motorcycle trails you can see all these highly valuable activities in here where they come down the steep incline and come back up the other side and they just do it repeatedly say get these lines that isn't supposed to occur in the area critical environmental concern in this area the bureau of land

management or blm has posted notices and barriers in an effort to keep people on legal routes but anderson says in most of the mojave the blm hasn't done that and illegal trails are proliferating the agency was supposed to designate legal routes more than twenty years ago but he says it hasn't had the money to finish the job even at one time of the california off road vehicle association agrees it's a problem if you call out than an area and you go right there are no signs are no rules there's nothing to tell you were double what you expect the public to do the pump is going to go right in the next couple of months the blm is expected to announce a new plan for designating routes in the west my hobby that wartime isn't optimistic closer to the promise the moon they don't have the money they don't have the willpower waldheim says the blm also have to respond to the growing popularity of the sport by one estimate the number of drivers has doubled in the last twenty years the blm did not respond to requests for an interview but its plans are unlikely to

calm the debate between environmentalists and offer elders who have very different visions for the california desert in the mojave ilsa said to yell at nine point three kpcc