By: Lindsey Stone, Plant Stewardship Coordinator “Desert is a loose term to indicate land that supports no man; whether the land can be bitted and broken to that purpose is not proven. Void of life it never is, however dry the air and villainous the soil" -...
This 2025 State of the Basin Report (SOBR) was prepared by Roux Associates, Inc. (Roux) on behalf of the American Bird Conservancy (ABC) as part of a much larger effort that is being conducted between ABC, the Amargosa Conservancy (AC), California Botanical Garden,...
The Chaos in the Amargosa By: Holly Fischer The first place I hiked in the Amargosa River Basin was the Bill Christian Trail, starting at China Ranch. The morning started with a bevy of quails running in and out of the honey mesquite that lined the...
Author Josh Jackson’s The Enduring Wild invites readers to explore California’s forgotten BLM lands, including the Amargosa River—revealing their beauty, fragility, and urgent need for protection.
By Scott H. Williams, Restoration Project Manager “Cultures of gratitude must also be cultures of reciprocity. Each person, human or no, is bound to every other in a reciprocal relationship. Just as all beings have a duty to me, I have a duty to them. If an animal...
By Morrigan DeVito, Restoration & Plant Stewardship Coordinator 86 degrees– despite our sweat, the botany team and I consider this to be cool weather since we’re only just starting the spring/summer field season of botanical monitoring. I joined AC board member...
By Morrigan DeVito, Restoration & Plant Stewardship Coordinator I guess you could say birds brought me to the Amargosa. It was the joy of birding in the urban wetlands of the Las Vegas Valley that opened my heart up to loving the Mojave Desert and seeing a future...
By Scott H Williams, Restoration Project Manager In February 2025, our organization entered an exciting new phase with the initiation of two major restoration projects in the California portion of the Amargosa River watershed. I am fortunate to have a new role with...
By Scott H. Williams At approximately 7:50pm on Tuesday, February 11, 2025, Southern Inyo Fire Protection District (SIFPD) received an emergency tone from dispatch followed by a report of a brush fire at the Borehole hot spring in Tecopa, California. SIFPD responded...
By Mason Voehl, Executive Director In a remarkable year for the Amargosa River and Basin, the California Wildlife Conservation Board (WCB) has awarded two critical grants to support the resilience and biodiversity of this unique desert ecosystem. These grants, one...
by Scott H Williams As an environmental scientist, I wonder at times whether the detached, data-driven approach to the scientific study of the natural world inevitably alienates us from having a deep spiritual appreciation for nature. Does quantitatively analyzing the...
Science is and always will be a pillar of of the work our organization does to protect the Amargosa Basin. For the last 20 years, Amargosa Conservancy has worked alongside local governments, state and federal agencies, non-profit partners, and researchers to develop...
Miss out on our 2023 Summer Seminar on Amargosa Hydrology? Watch the recording of Andy Zdon's presentation on the fascinating science and stories of the Amargosa Basin's springs: Love springs, and love the work we're doing to protect them in the Amargosa Basin? Become...
by Mason Voehl Executive Director Artificial intelligence's moment has been long in coming, and now it's arrived. Testing the capacities of novel AI engines such as ChatGPT to "outsource" what has long been thought to be the strictly human activity of writing has been...
by Josh Jackson If I were to tell you I was going to visit a “wild and scenic river,” what kind of images would that conjure up for you? Perhaps a raging rapids of white water careening through large boulders? Or how about a meandering tributary with deep pools and a...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
Keepers of the Bitter Waters: A film by Fred Bell.
Experiences as an intern: babysitting a colony of voles and leaving Shoshone
While the work we did here specifically fits the needs of these landscapes, the sustainable practices we implored and the skills we learned can be carried on with us to our future endeavors, able to be adapted to varying landscape types.
After a few hectic weeks, the Amargosa Conservancy interns are getting back to their normal routine.
The Great Old Broads for Wilderness is a national organization that engages and inspires activism to preserve and protect wilderness and wild lands. Their mission statement says that they bring knowledge, commitment, and humor to the movement to protect our last wild places on earth, and boy- they did not disappoint.
Decompressing the soil, collecting dead parts of live bushes, putting them in a hole, filling the hole with rocks and soil and texturing the surrounding soil to naturalize an area in desperate need of rehab – steps to successful vertical mulching.
As they days lengthen in the Amargosa Basin, some spring flowers are starting their show.
While it’s not the great super-bloom of last year, for those willing to go explore there are plenty of treasures to find out there!
In coming weeks, we expect the Bureau of Land Management to finalize the Desert Renewable Energy and Conservation Plan (DRECP), in which the public lands of the Amargosa Basin are likely to be designated at California Desert Conservation Lands. To celebrate, we are highlighting the decade-long partnership between the Amargosa Conservancy and the BLM to engage in stewardship on these lands
In coming weeks, we expect the Bureau of Land Management to finalize the Desert Renewable Energy and Conservation Plan (DRECP), in which the public lands of the Amargosa Basin are likely to be designated at California Desert Conservation Lands. To celebrate, we are highlighting the decade-long partnership between the Amargosa Conservancy and the BLM to engage in stewardship on these lands
The Conservancy has been strategizing with the BLM to restore the damaged areas off-route and provide post and cable barriers to prevent future incursions, as well as place interpretative signs and maps so recreators know where they are and how they can play a part in making sure the next generation has access to the same opportunities we have now.
“What is a vole?”
Two of our major areas of work were featured in a series on climate change produced by the Desert Sun and distributed via USA Today!
Growing Native Bulrush in human care. We hope that supplementing the already existing bulrush in the marsh will help to facilitate even more successful growth rates. Soon enough, all of this happily growing bulrush will be more than ready to house it’s furry friend, the Amargosa vole.
As an AmeriCorps intern through the Student Conservation Association (SCA), my role at the Amargosa Conservancy is to be a steward of the surrounding lands and waters. Recently, my efforts have been focused on removing tamarisk from the Shoshone wetlands.
I’m lucky enough to learn from the experts and will soon take on the endeavor of helping with weekly pond maintenance.
Prepared by Carol A. Corbett Great Basin Research 5036 N. Cimarron Rd. Las Vegas, NV 89149 For U.S. Department of Interior Bureau of Land Management 2800 Cottage Way Sacramento, CA 95825 Order No. BAP990119 January, 2000 View the full 30-page report as a PDF...