• Name: Joan Taylor
• Location: Palm Springs, California
• Contribution: Vice chair of the California/Nevada Desert Committee

Tell me about the creation of the Sand to Snow, Mojave Trails, and Castle Mountains National Monuments. The establishment of these monuments means that the wildernesses set aside in the 1994 California Desert Protection Act will no longer be islands in a sea of land subject to all kinds of abuse. This continuity will allow animals and plants to migrate and hopefully survive climate change.

You live in Palm Springs. Did you grow up there? No, I'm a San Francisco native. I dropped out of college, came to the desert, and almost immediately got involved in conservation. By 1970, I was the officer of the local Sierra Club group. So it's been about 45 years of activism. I didn't have any special education in biology. The Sierra Club gave me the opportunity to learn what I needed to learn. It's been a wonderful career.

What drew you to the desert? You can see forever—range after range just luring you in. In a forest, you may be deep in the wilderness, but you can't see that far unless you get up on a peak.

What's your typical day like as an activist? Working on national monuments is a real crunch, with a lot of meetings, letter writing, op-eds, community-support building, and so forth. But day-to-day, I'm more apt to be on conference calls, having tactical conversations with other NGOs. My style of activism is never to demonize anyone and, if possible, to work with people instead of against them. It requires negotiating skills and knowing what's a reasonable compromise. I spend a lot of time picking people's brains.

What other issues are you working on? Renewable energy is a big one. I've been advocating for improvements to the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, which will be rolled out some time this year. I've learned about a lot of technical stuff, like megawatts and capacity and grid needs.  

I also work to protect the Salton Sea. It's the biggest lake in California, but it's evaporating. Millions of migratory birds depend on it, so this is not trivial. In the future, the lake won't be as big as it is now, but hopefully there's a way to ensure enough water to sustain it. 

What's your favorite spot in the desert? Palm Canyon, just south of Palm Springs. It's the largest native sand palm oasis in the world. It's pretty glorious.