Maybe a day.” Instead, he believes the best way to save Joshua trees is by expanding their habitat: introducing them to less harsh environments outside the Mojave Desert - namely, people’s homes. “If you wanted to plant a couple of baby Joshua trees there, in about a week, they’d be gone. “People think that Joshua Tree is the ideal environment for them - that couldn’t be more wrong!” he tells me. But that’s not what Craig has set out to do, not at all. The extinction threat was only made more dire last year when a wildfire wiped out what had been the world’s largest Joshua Tree forest: an estimated 1.3 million trees covering Cima Dome in the Mojave National Preserve.Įven prior to that burn, several organizations were hard at work trying to replant Joshua Trees in friendlier habitats. Which means, despite a lifespan stretching 500, even a thousand years, scientific studies predict the park’s aging population will be wiped out before the end of this century. Until that time, Joshua trees resemble small agaves, sprouting long, slender blades prone to drying or freezing under extreme conditions, or being devoured by the many rabbits populating the national park. It takes upwards of five years for the plants to resemble the crooked and spiky totems ingrained in the popular consciousness. Technically, Joshua trees aren’t really trees, but members of the yucca family.
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