The Mojave Sustainability Project - A Model for Community Partnerships in Natural Resource Conservation and Management

The Mojave Desert is a particularly fragile ecosystem that faces several significant impacts. These include rapid housing development, overdrafted water supplies, and loss of wildlife habitat as a result of mining, industrial activity and urban sprawl. Over the past three years, a diverse group of educators, natural resource managers and business leaders has been assembled under the auspices of a local college to provide unique natural resource education opportunities for the region. By leveraging the collective experience of these present generation natural resource professionals, the Mojave Sustainability Project hopes to provide the next generation of professionals with that knowledge and those technical skills upon which tomorrow’s community can rely. This paper is a case study of how partnerships between academia, government, industry and the community can serve to address the regional social, environmental, and economic needs of today, while investing in the development of those professionals who will balance these needs tomorrow.