Earth Week 🌎🌍🌏 Saturday Stewardship Celebration!!

Join Friends and our amazing partners at Knit Studios and the Fish and Wildlife Service to restore damage caused by off-route driving and unpermitted camping along Mormon Well Road in Desert National Wildlife Refuge.  Nah'gah Kai, as the Sheep Range and DNWR are known to the Nuwuvi (Southern Paiute), is not only an expansive landscape of limestone peaks, hidden forests, cacti and washes, but is central to the creation stories and histories of the Nuwuvi and ancestral people of the Mojave and Great Basin.  The Desert National Wildlife Refuge is the largest wildlife refuge in the contiguous United States, and is home to one of the largest herds of desert bighorn sheep in the world.  

We thank you for sharing a Saturday with us on the Refuge to help preserve the natural splendor of this desert jewel for generations to come.  During the rush to outdoor recreation at the beginning of the pandemic the DNWR was hit hard in many areas.  This has left a situation where unpermitted camping, shooting, and driving have proliferated along some of the more accessible roads.  Waste including garbage and feces, as well as severe damage to Joshua Trees and other native flora, and vehicle damage have occurred.  

On Saturday April 24 we will meet at the Corn Creek Visitor Center at Desert National Wildlife Refuge at 9:00am.  From there we will carpool and caravan to the work site, about 4 miles away on a graded but bumpy dirt road - a high clearance vehicle is required.

What are we doing?  We will spend the day restoring vehicle damage, installing post and cable barriers, discussing ways people can responsibly recreate and Leave No Trace while leaving areas better than we found them!  

What to wear?   Please wear closed toe shoes and long pants - many of the plants we will encounter are pointy.  A hat is recommended, as are sunglasses and comfortable clothes you won't mind getting dusty in.  If you have your own work gloves, you may bring them as well.  

Things To Know Before You Go: The world is a wild place, and we're all wild at heart - but please, remember to be respectful of the people and places we are working with.  We will be following Covid-19 precautions on site throughout the day.  This includes the mask mandate on Federal Lands - a face covering will be required outdoors when social distancing is not possible.  During much of work day, social distancing may not be possible.  Please wear a mask and respect others' personal space.  Please do not attend if you are unable to comply with face covering requirements, are feeling sick, or exhibiting symptoms consistent with a coronavirus infection in the 48 hours before the project. 

RSVP today, spaces are limited!  

Contact [email protected] for more information.