| Wildlands Conservancy Boosts California Desert Conservation
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1/20/99 Palm Desert: California desert conservation received a major boost today, when the southern California based Wildlands Conservancy turned over 10,000 acres of desert overlooking Joshua Tree National Park to the U.S. Department of the Interior. This land was formerly owned by the Catellus Development Corporation and represents the first of a planned 487,000 acres which will be transferred from the Wildlands Conservancy to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the National Park Service (NPS). When completed, this will be the largest land exchange in California history.
The Wildlands Conservancy, a non-profit corporation formed in 1995 and
headquartered in Oak Glen, has pledged $25.5 million to purchase the Catellus and other privately held lands. The deal requires that the federal government pay an additional $36 million. Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of the Interior, indicated that there was an excellent chance that Congress would approve an appropriation under the "Lands Legacy Initiative" (from the Land and Water Conservation Fund) announced by President Clinton on January 12, 1999 and to be put into the year 2000 budget.
Over 100 years ago, the United States government gave the land to railroad companies to encourage railroad development. This lead to the former Southern Pacific railroad (now transformed into Catellus Development Corporation) owning a vast checkerboard of land holdings interspersed among public lands. Catellus was moved to sell the land by a near bankruptcy situation according to the December 16, 1998 Wall Street Journal. The Wildlands Conservancy, Catellus and BLM signed a letter of intent on January 8, 1999.
The deal ensures that vast sections of the California desert will be entirely under public administration, facilitating rational land use plans and ecosystem preservation.
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