Friends of the Inyo celebrates with our friends at the Center for Biological Diversity today’s announcement by the US Fish & Wildlife Service that the Inyo Rock Daisy may require federal protection under the Endangered Species Act! This rare, delicate flower lives in the Conglomerate Mesa area, which we are working to protect. Read the full media release.
Conglomerate Mesa
Most of us live in places where we can only see a few of the brightest stars in the sky at night, but what if that didn’t have to be the case? Listen to Kayla Browne and Dan Duriscoe as they sit under a sky full of stars in Death Valley and discuss light pollution, bats, migrating birds, why dark skies are important, astronomy, places you can go to see a truly dark sky, and what can be done to bring stars back to our cities and our lives. It’s all in the latest episode of the Golden State Naturalist…
Please come to an Open House from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, August 19, at our new satellite office space, located at 142 East Bush Street, across from the post office in Lone Pine. There will be free food, drinks, and the opportunity to meet our board and staff, and to mix & mingle with your Eastern Sierra neighbors. No RSVP necessary. Just show up! While Friends of the Inyo has always worked to protect and care for the lands of Southern Inyo County, the opening of our Lone Pine office is an important demonstration of our long-term commitment to…
Have a listen to Wendy’s talk with Golden State Naturalist podcast creator and host Michelle Fullner about Conglomerate Mesa, a majestic Joshua Tree-studded landscape and Dark Desert Sky mecca Friends of the Inyo, together with other desert protection organizations and local Native Tribes, is working to protect from destructive mining.
In case you missed Monday’s Washington Post, we have a link to a front-page article titled “A new gold rush pits money and jobs against California’s environment,” which mentions Friends of the Inyo and our fight to protect Conglomerate Mesa from mining interests. Read all about it!
For me, Friends of the Inyo’s Dark Desert Skies Campout (May 20-22) was just as much about all we can see under Daytime Desert Skies! By Kayla Browne, Desert Lands Organizer Friends of the Inyo had a wonderful group of friends come out to learn more about dark skies and the beauty of Conglomerate Mesa and Centennial Flat over our three-day Dark Desert Skies Campout event that began with an educational evening at the Museum of Western Film History in Lone Pine. On Friday evening, May 20, we premiered “Island in the Sky,” a short film produced by Patagonia about…
The latest issue of Friends of the Inyo’s Jeffrey Pine Journal, now in its twentieth year, features timely conservation-related topics such as fire management, wayward balloon litter in nature, the 30×30 Initiative to conserve 30 percent of our public lands and coastal waters by 2030, and more. Click on the image above or this link to access and download a pdf version. Happy reading! Please remember that you can get a hard copy of the Jeffrey Pine Journal delivered to your home twice a year, in Spring and Fall, as one of the perks of membership with Friends of the…
By Jora Fogg, FOI Policy Director Last month, in conjunction with Earth Day, the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) released their final Pathways to 30×30: Accelerating Conservation of California’s Nature strategy to forward the global effort to conserve 30 percent of lands and coastal waters by 2030 (30×30). The plan focuses on protecting the state’s biodiversity, advancing equitable access to nature and addressing the climate crisis. The Pathways document was crafted by a dedicated team at CNRA through months of public engagement. More than 4,100 Californians engaged with the state to provide input through more than a dozen public meetings,…
We strongly recommend this read. Happy reading…And happy sharing!
Still Celebrating a BIG Win for Conglomerate Mesa! By Kayla Browne, Desert Lands Organizer After four years of defending Conglomerate Mesa from the greedy hands of K2 Gold and its subsidiary Mojave Precious Metals, we finally got a temporary win. On March 17th, K2 Gold announced in a press release an “indefinite suspension of activities at the Mojave Project.” K2 is the 11th company to threaten the Mesa since the 1980s. Conglomerate Mesa, the ancestral homelands and traditional territories of the Timbisha Shoshone and Paiute-Shoshone Tribes, is located in a remote area of the Inyo Mountains, east of Keeler, on…