6 ms·

The Fight to Protect the Joshua Tree

69 points by lxm 3y ago

ur-whale 3y ago
https://archive.is/Tf3OK https://archive.is/Tf3OK
Dalewyn 3y ago
>the species was “abundant and widespread,” with between 4.3 million to 9.8 million of the trees in California. That is neither an endangered nor a threatened species. Tough shit. >according to environmentalists, because around 40% of the plants grow on private land. The Joshua trees could be razed to make way for homes and infrastructure. The environmentalists can propose to buy the private land, if they can't (or won't) then tough shit: They aren't the landowners and thus should have no say.
- CJefferson 3y ago
  I don't like the idea that landowners should have complete control of the land they own. Owning land, more than anything else, should be considered a responsibility -- we have a finite amount of it and (mostly) can't make more. I personally feel many societial problems arise from poor use of land (in the UK, the lack of house building has both pushed up both rents and house prices to extremely unreasonable levels).
  - sclarisse 3y ago
    If your problem is with land use, especially UK land use in cities, it’s much more the zoning and planning permission that’s to blame: if anything there’s too little landowner control and too much social control (at least, social control of the wrong sort.) Building new housing supply into an overpriced market is generally quite profitable, and will be pursued by private landowners when not illegal.
  - steve1977 3y ago
    This. I would even do away with the concept of individuals owning land and just give people some restricted usage rights.
    - logifail 3y ago
      > I would even do away with the concept of individuals owning land and just give people some restricted usage rights Q: How would this affect those who purchase land to build a home?
      - groby_b 3y ago
        A time-limited right of use. If you're a good steward of the land, it gets renewed. Leaseholds are (or at least have been) a fairly common and workable thing.
        RecycledEle 3y ago
        Not owning the land would that lead to a tragedy of the commons with people building houses not building to last.
        steve1977 3y ago
        Several options… have the state build houses… or fine people if they build houses with too bad quality… I don’t see an unsolvable issue here.
      - steve1977 3y ago
        You could not purchase land to build a home anymore. You could maybe get land lent to you and pay a rent on it (to the community). But it wouldn’t be „your“ land.
- dan-robertson 3y ago
  IUCN have it as ‘Least Concern’ but NatureServe have it as ‘vulnerable’ which is one of their ‘threatened’ statuses. I don’t really know about NatureServe though. I think their methodology is different in how it treats cultivated/non-native populations.
- fluxinflex 3y ago
  Ownership is not always complete. Nature and natural resources are in fact a societal good and shouldn't be dominated by a small class of people within society. Sure someone "owns" that land (whatever that means since it was "owned" by others before the Europeans came) and they have certain rights but they should not have all rights. Imagine a powerful landowner owning _all_ plots of land on which Joshua Tree existed, imagine that landowner unilaterally deciding to destroy all the trees. They have made a decision for future societies that is not theirs to make. The property own profits, society pays.
- noselasd 3y ago
  >>the species was “abundant and widespread,” with between 4.3 million to 9.8 >>million of the trees in California. > That is neither an endangered nor a threatened species. Tough shit. I think that's what people said about the passenger pigeon also. Anyway, I don't think everyone shares your view that land owners can do whatever they so please. I certainly hope there's some protection against the my neighbouring landowners starting up a toxic vaste dump on their land next to mine.
  - RecycledEle 3y ago
    Nobody is going to manage to buy every piece of land that Joshua Trees grow on. If someone tried that, the last few trees they did not own would get more valuable, and there would be massive efforts to save them to make money. The invisible hand fixes things. Laissez Faire.
- ah1508 3y ago
  Owing something usually give you the exclusive use of it but does not allow you to do what you want with it. You cannot walk in the street with a running chain saw even if you own it. Same thing with your car, you must respect a lot of rules. If you own a Picasso you cannot burn it. It is a political choice to let someone destroy a forest but not a Picasso.
  - ah1508 3y ago
    * OwNing something
  - deafpolygon 3y ago
    why is a picasso more important than an ecological system?
    - ah1508 3y ago
      It is question asked by the soup thrown at paintings in museums recently. Like saying "Why do you consider that paintings must be protected and not the possibility to keep living on this planet ?" At least it is how I interpret it. It is about rules elaborated by an educated society. Not perfect rules, but at least rules that preserve what this society consider "important". Many example show that humans that live in a given place are very well aware of how important is a "healthy" ecosystem and give rights to "a good life" to this ecosystem: Wanganui river in New-Zeland, lac Erie in US (this attempt failed), constitution of Ecuador, etc... Elinor Ostrom wrote interesting about this rules (governing the commons), she had the nobel prize for that.
    - pvaldes 3y ago
      Is not more important, but we can preserve both at the same time. And those gluing this hands to valuable old master paintings are still imbecile puppets, no matter the alleged reason to do it in their minds.
      - deafpolygon 3y ago
        > but we can preserve both at the same time Sure, spending million on 'priceless' art... while spending as little as possible on preserving our ecosystems?
noobermin 3y ago
To be honest, I'm not sure which side of this conflict I come on. Sure, 40% of the trees live on private land, but only a fraction of that would need to actually be razed for new housing, and with the changing landscape, that housing should be much more denser than previous sfh. I'm not sure how much new development is responsible for the reducing population. On the other hand, while the trees exist, the ending quote is telling that no new trees seem to be growing because of the changing climate. Just mere numbers currently existing seems too simplistic to apply as a metric to determine whether something is endangered when that species is not really reproducing well. By the point it becomes endangered, it will be too late. The existing bill sounds like a good compromise. May be another (or instead of legislation, an administrative plan) could be to slot a certain number of allowances, say for 1-5% of the existing tree population, and grant permits for removal up to that number, and require the new housing to be above a certain density requirement to get the permits. That way everyone gets a little of what they want, yimby's get their houses, the trees are somewhat protected and it's not open season on them, and the only ones who lose out are lazy individual homeowners who want to kill their tree so they can put up another boring grass lawn.
- uxamanda 3y ago
  Not too many grass lawns in the area luckily :). From what I can tell, they are cutting them down to put up the building itself. Seems to be a bigger problem on small lots. What makes me sad is seeing places where they leave the lone tree but rip up 100% of the other native plants that create an ecosystem with the trees. No longer a great spot for wildlife and it makes me wonder how it affects the health of the tree.
pvaldes 3y ago
Is not the species, is the old valuable individuals that are alive monuments. For example, ashes are frequent species, but 500 Yo ashes are very rare (The species can live this time but 99,99% are killed when they are less than 100 Yo). If you have a 500 Yo ash you may want to protect it. At this moment many temperate forests are like seeing a city when all inhabitants where 10 years old or less. This is not really OK. There is a problem here. People in cities are very afraid of trees and chomp it at the tiniest ludicrous excuses. In any case Yuccas, like the Joshua Tree, are very easy to transplant and even easier to clone, so is just a question of throwing more engineering efforts at this problem because the trees can be moved and stand drough periods. Their biology allows to put a Joshua tree in an hangar and let it without any soil or water for a month. They just don't care. The main problem is to avoid breaking the branches. Easily fixable if you wrap the tree before In the desert each tree counts also, as water container, so the more they have of a frequent species, the better for humans inhabiting the area.
- uxamanda 3y ago
  From what I have read and experienced, Joshua trees are very difficult to transplant, but that could be with different tech. Do you have any resources for the technique you mention, would be love to learn more. Fwiw, I’ve tried and failed 3 times with little ones (that were going to be destroyed regardless) and have one transplant that is doing ok.
  - pvaldes 3y ago
    How do you did it?
    - uxamanda 3y ago
      Dug around the plant to keep the roots as undisturbed as possible, moved via truck less than 1 block, immediately replanted into non-amended ground (have heard that rich soil can kill them quickly), watered in, continued watering occasionally (~monthly). After about 6 months 3 had died. These were only about 1 foot tall, from a neighbor who had clearance to remove. FWIW, with aloe, a similar process had much greater success of transplant.
aurizon 3y ago
They can deal with this by mandating a desert ecology. I see huge amounts of water in Ca pumped from declining aquifer to maintain huge areas of lawns on houses etc. I wonder if this is a nimby based mechanism to maintain house prices by limiting new home builds? People in million dollar tar paper shacks in Ca simply do not want more/denser housing = arcane zoning laws in Ca.
- nickphx 3y ago
  Residential water use makes up less than 10% with agriculture making up over 50.. https://cwc.ca.gov/-/media/CWC-Website/Files/Documents/2019/06_June/June2019_Item_12_Attach_2_PPICFactSheets.pdf https://cwc.ca.gov/-/media/CWC-Website/Files/Documents/2019/...
MongoTheMad 3y ago
I have lived in California. If there is serious concern for saving the Joshua Tree, then California needs to make another sanctuary for it in a place where people do not want to live: north of Barstow. Yucca Valley is a nice place to live and should have more people (much nicer than in the deserted wastelands north of Victorville.)
amadeuspagel 3y ago
> Hotter, drier conditions are already hurting them, according to Cameron Barrows, a retired conservation biologist at the University of California, Riverside. Dr. Barrows said his research indicates climate change will threaten much of the Joshua tree’s habitat by the end of the century. Even inside the national park, the tree could largely disappear, conservation groups say. In that case, what's the point of protecting any individual tree, if they'll disappear anyway?
- groby_b 3y ago
  By that logic, people who have an injury should just be euthanized? Obviously, you wouldn't do that. Neither should we let species die off deliberately because we currently assume climate change will threaten their habitat. We do not know. We have the power to shape climate change to some extent. The trees might migrate all by themselves. We could possibly find a new habitat. "Ah, fuck it, it's hard" isn't the answer here.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
uxamanda 3y ago
“It simplifies the process for builders to get a permit to remove trees and requires a fee that would go toward a conservation fund. ” One problem has been that the penalty fee for ignoring the process was (at least historically) lower than the permit. I read multiple articles about developers ignoring permitting and paying the penalty when/if caught. My favorite was one where they claimed they “didn’t know” it was required, but were caught while digging a ditch to hide the evidence. I don’t know enough about the new legislation to know if that imbalance would still remain.

69 points by lxm 3y ago

https://archive.is/Tf3OK https://archive.is/Tf3OK

>the species was “abundant and widespread,” with between 4.3 million to 9.8 million of the trees in California. That is neither an endangered nor a threatened species. Tough shit. >according to environmentalists, because around 40% of the plants grow on private land. The Joshua trees could be razed to make way for homes and infrastructure. The environmentalists can propose to buy the private land, if they can't (or won't) then tough shit: They aren't the landowners and thus should have no say.

CJefferson 3y ago
I don't like the idea that landowners should have complete control of the land they own. Owning land, more than anything else, should be considered a responsibility -- we have a finite amount of it and (mostly) can't make more. I personally feel many societial problems arise from poor use of land (in the UK, the lack of house building has both pushed up both rents and house prices to extremely unreasonable levels).
- sclarisse 3y ago
  If your problem is with land use, especially UK land use in cities, it’s much more the zoning and planning permission that’s to blame: if anything there’s too little landowner control and too much social control (at least, social control of the wrong sort.) Building new housing supply into an overpriced market is generally quite profitable, and will be pursued by private landowners when not illegal.
- steve1977 3y ago
  This. I would even do away with the concept of individuals owning land and just give people some restricted usage rights.
  - logifail 3y ago
    > I would even do away with the concept of individuals owning land and just give people some restricted usage rights Q: How would this affect those who purchase land to build a home?
    - groby_b 3y ago
      A time-limited right of use. If you're a good steward of the land, it gets renewed. Leaseholds are (or at least have been) a fairly common and workable thing.
      - RecycledEle 3y ago
        Not owning the land would that lead to a tragedy of the commons with people building houses not building to last.
        steve1977 3y ago
        Several options… have the state build houses… or fine people if they build houses with too bad quality… I don’t see an unsolvable issue here.
    - steve1977 3y ago
      You could not purchase land to build a home anymore. You could maybe get land lent to you and pay a rent on it (to the community). But it wouldn’t be „your“ land.
dan-robertson 3y ago
IUCN have it as ‘Least Concern’ but NatureServe have it as ‘vulnerable’ which is one of their ‘threatened’ statuses. I don’t really know about NatureServe though. I think their methodology is different in how it treats cultivated/non-native populations.
fluxinflex 3y ago
Ownership is not always complete. Nature and natural resources are in fact a societal good and shouldn't be dominated by a small class of people within society. Sure someone "owns" that land (whatever that means since it was "owned" by others before the Europeans came) and they have certain rights but they should not have all rights. Imagine a powerful landowner owning _all_ plots of land on which Joshua Tree existed, imagine that landowner unilaterally deciding to destroy all the trees. They have made a decision for future societies that is not theirs to make. The property own profits, society pays.
noselasd 3y ago
>>the species was “abundant and widespread,” with between 4.3 million to 9.8 >>million of the trees in California. > That is neither an endangered nor a threatened species. Tough shit. I think that's what people said about the passenger pigeon also. Anyway, I don't think everyone shares your view that land owners can do whatever they so please. I certainly hope there's some protection against the my neighbouring landowners starting up a toxic vaste dump on their land next to mine.
- RecycledEle 3y ago
  Nobody is going to manage to buy every piece of land that Joshua Trees grow on. If someone tried that, the last few trees they did not own would get more valuable, and there would be massive efforts to save them to make money. The invisible hand fixes things. Laissez Faire.
ah1508 3y ago
Owing something usually give you the exclusive use of it but does not allow you to do what you want with it. You cannot walk in the street with a running chain saw even if you own it. Same thing with your car, you must respect a lot of rules. If you own a Picasso you cannot burn it. It is a political choice to let someone destroy a forest but not a Picasso.
- ah1508 3y ago
  * OwNing something
- deafpolygon 3y ago
  why is a picasso more important than an ecological system?
  - ah1508 3y ago
    It is question asked by the soup thrown at paintings in museums recently. Like saying "Why do you consider that paintings must be protected and not the possibility to keep living on this planet ?" At least it is how I interpret it. It is about rules elaborated by an educated society. Not perfect rules, but at least rules that preserve what this society consider "important". Many example show that humans that live in a given place are very well aware of how important is a "healthy" ecosystem and give rights to "a good life" to this ecosystem: Wanganui river in New-Zeland, lac Erie in US (this attempt failed), constitution of Ecuador, etc... Elinor Ostrom wrote interesting about this rules (governing the commons), she had the nobel prize for that.
  - pvaldes 3y ago
    Is not more important, but we can preserve both at the same time. And those gluing this hands to valuable old master paintings are still imbecile puppets, no matter the alleged reason to do it in their minds.
    - deafpolygon 3y ago
      > but we can preserve both at the same time Sure, spending million on 'priceless' art... while spending as little as possible on preserving our ecosystems?

noobermin 3y ago

To be honest, I'm not sure which side of this conflict I come on. Sure, 40% of the trees live on private land, but only a fraction of that would need to actually be razed for new housing, and with the changing landscape, that housing should be much more denser than previous sfh. I'm not sure how much new development is responsible for the reducing population. On the other hand, while the trees exist, the ending quote is telling that no new trees seem to be growing because of the changing climate. Just mere numbers currently existing seems too simplistic to apply as a metric to determine whether something is endangered when that species is not really reproducing well. By the point it becomes endangered, it will be too late. The existing bill sounds like a good compromise. May be another (or instead of legislation, an administrative plan) could be to slot a certain number of allowances, say for 1-5% of the existing tree population, and grant permits for removal up to that number, and require the new housing to be above a certain density requirement to get the permits. That way everyone gets a little of what they want, yimby's get their houses, the trees are somewhat protected and it's not open season on them, and the only ones who lose out are lazy individual homeowners who want to kill their tree so they can put up another boring grass lawn.

uxamanda 3y ago
Not too many grass lawns in the area luckily :). From what I can tell, they are cutting them down to put up the building itself. Seems to be a bigger problem on small lots. What makes me sad is seeing places where they leave the lone tree but rip up 100% of the other native plants that create an ecosystem with the trees. No longer a great spot for wildlife and it makes me wonder how it affects the health of the tree.

pvaldes 3y ago

Is not the species, is the old valuable individuals that are alive monuments. For example, ashes are frequent species, but 500 Yo ashes are very rare (The species can live this time but 99,99% are killed when they are less than 100 Yo). If you have a 500 Yo ash you may want to protect it. At this moment many temperate forests are like seeing a city when all inhabitants where 10 years old or less. This is not really OK. There is a problem here. People in cities are very afraid of trees and chomp it at the tiniest ludicrous excuses. In any case Yuccas, like the Joshua Tree, are very easy to transplant and even easier to clone, so is just a question of throwing more engineering efforts at this problem because the trees can be moved and stand drough periods. Their biology allows to put a Joshua tree in an hangar and let it without any soil or water for a month. They just don't care. The main problem is to avoid breaking the branches. Easily fixable if you wrap the tree before In the desert each tree counts also, as water container, so the more they have of a frequent species, the better for humans inhabiting the area.

uxamanda 3y ago
From what I have read and experienced, Joshua trees are very difficult to transplant, but that could be with different tech. Do you have any resources for the technique you mention, would be love to learn more. Fwiw, I’ve tried and failed 3 times with little ones (that were going to be destroyed regardless) and have one transplant that is doing ok.
- pvaldes 3y ago
  How do you did it?
  - uxamanda 3y ago
    Dug around the plant to keep the roots as undisturbed as possible, moved via truck less than 1 block, immediately replanted into non-amended ground (have heard that rich soil can kill them quickly), watered in, continued watering occasionally (~monthly). After about 6 months 3 had died. These were only about 1 foot tall, from a neighbor who had clearance to remove. FWIW, with aloe, a similar process had much greater success of transplant.

aurizon 3y ago

They can deal with this by mandating a desert ecology. I see huge amounts of water in Ca pumped from declining aquifer to maintain huge areas of lawns on houses etc. I wonder if this is a nimby based mechanism to maintain house prices by limiting new home builds? People in million dollar tar paper shacks in Ca simply do not want more/denser housing = arcane zoning laws in Ca.

nickphx 3y ago
Residential water use makes up less than 10% with agriculture making up over 50.. https://cwc.ca.gov/-/media/CWC-Website/Files/Documents/2019/06_June/June2019_Item_12_Attach_2_PPICFactSheets.pdf https://cwc.ca.gov/-/media/CWC-Website/Files/Documents/2019/...

MongoTheMad 3y ago

I have lived in California. If there is serious concern for saving the Joshua Tree, then California needs to make another sanctuary for it in a place where people do not want to live: north of Barstow. Yucca Valley is a nice place to live and should have more people (much nicer than in the deserted wastelands north of Victorville.)

amadeuspagel 3y ago

> Hotter, drier conditions are already hurting them, according to Cameron Barrows, a retired conservation biologist at the University of California, Riverside. Dr. Barrows said his research indicates climate change will threaten much of the Joshua tree’s habitat by the end of the century. Even inside the national park, the tree could largely disappear, conservation groups say. In that case, what's the point of protecting any individual tree, if they'll disappear anyway?

groby_b 3y ago
By that logic, people who have an injury should just be euthanized? Obviously, you wouldn't do that. Neither should we let species die off deliberately because we currently assume climate change will threaten their habitat. We do not know. We have the power to shape climate change to some extent. The trees might migrate all by themselves. We could possibly find a new habitat. "Ah, fuck it, it's hard" isn't the answer here.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

uxamanda 3y ago

“It simplifies the process for builders to get a permit to remove trees and requires a fee that would go toward a conservation fund. ” One problem has been that the penalty fee for ignoring the process was (at least historically) lower than the permit. I read multiple articles about developers ignoring permitting and paying the penalty when/if caught. My favorite was one where they claimed they “didn’t know” it was required, but were caught while digging a ditch to hide the evidence. I don’t know enough about the new legislation to know if that imbalance would still remain.