RESOURCES
AC Blog
Work crew in the Amargosa Basin
Executive Director’s Reflection: The Road Ahead
Amargosa Conservancy Board of Directors, 2023 Effective conservation work takes vision. And vision takes people. Last weekend, January 21-22nd, the Amargosa Conservancy board of directors and staff met in Shoshone, CA for two days of intensive visioning and action...
Announcing: The Bill Christian Trailhead Project
It is with great excitement that we are sharing our plans for a bold new project in the Amargosa Basin: the Bill Christian Trailhead. For many years, public access to the Amargosa Wild and Scenic River in the Amargosa Canyon has been limited by challenges presented by...
Executive Director’s Reflection: Snowflakes and Springs
Saratoga Springs, Death Valley National Park: photo by Naomi Fraga by Mason Voehl, executive director Standing in the driveway of my home in Las Vegas, I watch cold clouds drag their snow-laden bellies across the high peaks of the Spring Mountains for the first time...
Executive Director’s Report: Reflections on this Monsoon Season
Rainbow over Ancient Lake Tecopa By Executive Director, Mason Voehl It is truly difficult to articulate just what this monsoon season has been like in the Mojave Desert. The last few years have been rough on the Amargosa Basin and the southwest as a whole. The drought...
CDFW News Release: Endangered Voles Begin To Repopulate In Inyo County, With Help From Scientists, Conservationists And Landowner
photo by Nancy Good "Seven years of carefully planned habitat restoration on private land in the Mojave Desert have yielded hope for the persistence of the endangered Amargosa vole. On Aug. 8, a photograph from a wildlife camera placed by researchers from the...
Mountain snowpack: A lifeline to the Amargosa
By AC Member Laura Dye A considerable body of scientific work highlights how climate change alters our landscapes. And while it is important to note the changes within the bounds of the Amargosa River Basin itself – warming temperatures, shifts in vegetation...
Fishes of the Amargosa Basin
By Patrick Donnelly Vice President, Amargosa Conservancy Great Basin Director, Center for Biological Diversity Before the Amargosa Basin was the hottest, driest place in North America, it was relatively moist. Abundant precipitation during the Pleistocene (as recently...
Warm Weather Hiking: When to go, what to bring
Temperatures are on the rise in the Amargosa Basin, which means it's a good time to reevaluate your approach to warm weather hiking. First, to be completely clear: May, June, July and August tend to be extreme in the Amargosa Basin. Temperatures regularly exceed 115...
Summer Seminar Series, 2022
The Amargosa Conservancy is thrilled to launch its first ever Summer Seminar Series! These seminars will feature presentations by our board of directors on the history, ecology, geology, and other fields related to our work in the Amargosa Basin. This is your chance...
Celebrating the Antiquities Act has never been more important.
On June 8th, our nation will observe the 116th anniversary of the Antiquities Act, and there has never been a more important time to celebrate this historic preservation policy and support its current use. When Theodore Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act into law in...
Volunteer Project to Trim Athel Grove at Salt Creek Hills
Located near highway 127 about midway between Baker and Shoshone, Salt Creek Hills ACEC (Area of Critical Environmental Concern) is a small but important riparian resource managed by the Bureau of Land Management’s Barstow office. During the Ice Ages, the...
The drought is real in the Amargosa Basin. Here’s how we’re responding.
Spring is a time of rejuvenation in the Amargosa Basin. As the days begin to warm, the dense mesquite-willow groves of the Amargosa wetlands begin to green up, and a dozen different bird songs fill the air. Creosote on the bajadas blooms bright and golden against the...
Executive Director’s Report: How the AC is supporting a scientific approach to water policy
While peering out the window of a single-engine Cessna 210 propellor plane on an Ecoflight over the northern Amargosa Basin, I had two thoughts simultaneously: This river is incredibly beautiful. This river is incredibly vulnerable. The Amargosa River faces threats at...
A Pond of Many Purposes: Collaborative Conservation on China Ranch
The pond at China Ranch is a perfect example of collaborative conservation done right. This pond functions as a passive irrigation system that captures the natural flow of Willow Creek through gravity as opposed to active pumping. China Ranch relies heavily on this...
Ecoflight Illustrates the Majesty and Precarity of the Northern Amargosa Basin
Early in the morning on Saturday, March 12th, individuals working and living in the Amargosa Basin and Death Valley region met at Calvada Meadows Airport near Pahrump, NV. The morning shown bright and windless: ideal conditions for flying in a single-engine Cessna 210...
2020 Amargosa State of the Basin Report
This 2020 State of the Basin Report (SOBR) was prepared by Partner Engineering and Science, Inc. (Partner) on behalf of the Amargosa Conservancy (AC) as part of a much larger effort that is being conducted between AC, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), U.S. Bureau of Land...
An Amargosa Moment: The Elusive Bend
Join Mason Voehl, our new Executive Director for this exciting new series on our AC blog all the moments and encounters in the Amargosa that leave lasting impressions on us.
AC Volunteers Assist with Screwbean Mesquite Planting Project
Written by Christiana Manville, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service On Saturday January 8, 2022, partners and volunteers came together to plant 63 mesquite trees on The Nature Conservancy’s Beatty Narrows property just south of Beatty. We planted 56 screwbean mesquite...
Partners and Volunteers Band Together to Improve Signage at China Ranch Trailhead
AC Board Member John Hiatt wipes freshly poured concrete off of the posts of the new trailhead sign at China Ranch. On January 15th, AC volunteers and Brian Brown from China Ranch Date Farm joined together to install a brand new trailhead sign at the China Ranch...
Introducing: An Amargosa Moment
Join Mason Voehl, our new Executive Director for this exciting new series on our AC blog all the moments and encounters in the Amargosa that leave lasting impressions on us.
California Botanist Named 2021 E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Award Recipient
AC Director Naomi Fraga Wins Award for Outstanding Science to Save Native Plants
History and Change on the Old Spanish Trail
For several decades after 1829, Los Angeles and Santa Fe were linked by a 700-mile trade route known as the Old Spanish Trail. Mule trains crossed the Amargosa region, between Las Vegas and the Mojave River, via a series of springs a day’s travel apart. A 22-minute...
Amargosa in the News: Wildlife Preservation from Extinction
This week the Los Angeles Times published a beautiful, moving and elegantly illustrated article by Louis Sahagún, covering projects across California with the noble goals of rescuing a variety of biological species from extinction and revitalizing plants and wildlife...
Bill Christian, A Remembrance
It is with great sadness that we note the passing of Bill Christian, co-founder of the Amargosa Conservancy and beloved leader in Amargosa Basin conservation.
Meet the Amargosa 2019
PDF version of Meet the Amargosa.
Photo Series: Amargosa Seasons – winter
Winter in Amargosa is a season of drama.
Film: Keepers of Bitter Waters
Keepers of the Bitter Waters: A film by Fred Bell.
Meet the Amargosa 2018
PDF version of Meet the Amargosa.
The Land and Water Conservation Fund
One of the most important public parks programs — the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) — is getting closer to its expiration date on September 30. Join us in demanding a vote on legislation to permanently reauthorize LWCF before the September expiration deadline.
Pining about large scale solar: Why the Yellow Pine Project will leave us with broken hearts
Just over the mountains from Tecopa, in the Lower Pahrump Valley, there is a plan to install a 3000 acre solar array in otherwise untouched, old growth desert – an area featuring desert tortoise and Joshua Trees.