The Joshua Tree National Park Association announced Idavid Graficks as recipient of the 2022 Minerva Hoyt Desert Conservation Award, honoring both owner David Fick and the late Ida Foreman Fick, partners in life, business, and an unending commitment to environmental preservation. David has been an MBCA Director for more than two decades. He joins previous recipients affiliated with MBCA including the original award recipient and MBCA's founder Susan Lucky Reilly (2004), Ruth and Steve Rieman (2012), and Pat Flanagan (2017). The Association's Press Release details David's long-time dedicated advocacy that we within MBCA know so well. An award ceremony is expected to be held in late September. 

MBCA has joined clean energy supporters across the country in requesting that their local utility (Southern California Edison in our case) clarify their commitment to decarbonization of power plants. The Edison Electric Institute (EEI), the industry’s trade organization, is planning to oppose some of the sensible emission control standards of the Biden administration’s climate legislation. Read the Los Angeles Times editorial that has many helpful links, and the national letter MBCA signed for more details.  

MBCA is among four regional conservation non-profits recommending together in this letter that the draft of the San Bernardino County Regional Conservation Investment Strategy be edited to meet statute requirements regarding quantifiable goals and gap analysis. In addition, MBCA along with Mojave Desert Land Trust, California Desert Coalition, and The Wildlands Conservancy suggest the use of the 2012 Morongo Basin Conservation Priorities Report to enrich the evaluative data for habitat value. 

MBCA's comment letter to the Bureau of Land Management requests they deny the Bonanza Solar Project in the greater Las Vegas area of the Mojave Desert and instead establish an Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) to protect an incredible array of desert plants and wildlife that would be decimated by the project.

MBCA has submitted a letter to the Wildlife Conservation Board of California's Desert Conservation Program in support of Mojave Desert Land Trust's effort to acquire and protect acreage in the Corridor Spring Site, a Morongo Basin location with water sources and documented wildlife corridor attributes.