New west tension and threatened species protection: The western Joshua tree conservation debate in the Morongo Basin, California

Keywords: New West, western Joshua tree, climate change, applied political ecology, endangered species
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

This study examines the process of formally considering a California Endangered Species Act (CESA) listing of the western Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia) as a threatened species under the stated threat of climate change. The Morongo Basin in California serves as a case study intended to showcase an evolving chapter in human-environment relations, the fragile nature of maintaining community cohesion while initiating state level oversight for a local species amid regional shifts, and the interplay between the longtime critical and emerging role of participatory application in political ecology (PE) that serves to foster collaborative strategies for species and landscape-level conservation. Given the precarity involved with species listings, the results of this research are intended to improve upon employed practices for the wellbeing of threatened and endangered species, ecological systems, and all stakeholders to the greatest extent possible. This is accomplished through the dissemination of stakeholder perspectives along with theoretical contributions of applied, or participatory, New West PE. The research methodology involves discourse network analysis (DNA) and Visone actor-concept network visualization programs. It also involves key informant interviews with stakeholder groups of diverse affiliations. The results of this study overall demonstrate the unique opportunity available to combine the principles of applied PE in the New West with endangered species conservation strategies to facilitate collaborative management of the western Joshua tree and its Mojave Desert habitat.