FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — As Jason Nez scans rugged mountains, high desert and cliffsides for signs of ancient tools and dwellings unique to the U.S. Southwest, he keeps in mind that they're part of a bigger picture.
MADRID (AP) — Politicians and experts met in Madrid on Friday to discuss ways to tackle drought and the increasing spread of deserts across the globe.
"The consequences of drought can affect up to three quarters of humanity by 2050.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California won't be listing the iconic western Joshua tree as a threatened species for now after the four-member Fish and Game Commission couldn't reach agreement Thursday on how best to protect the plant from climate change.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California officials are weighing whether to list the iconic western Joshua tree as a threatened species, a designation that would make it harder to remove the trees for housing, solar or other development projects.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A technology company that wants to bring broadband to more remote areas and monitor methane and other emissions from the oil and gas industry launched one of its airships from the New Mexico desert on Tuesday as part of a key test on the way to commercial operations.
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — A series of complex challenges, including a lack of funding and political will as well as rising insecurity linked to extremist groups al-Qaida and the Islamic State in Burkina Faso, are obstructing progress on Africa's Great Green Wall, according to experts involved in the initiative.
RENO, Nev. (AP) — A federal judge has ruled the Trump administration acted illegally in 2020 when it withdrew an earlier proposal to list as threatened a hen-sized bird found only in the high desert along the California-Nevada line.
The frequency and duration of droughts will continue to increase due to human-caused climate change, with water scarcity already affecting billions of people across the world, the United Nations warned in a report Wednesday.
SABHA, Jordan (AP) — Efforts to restore damaged but once fertile land in Jordan's desert are sprouting hope for one of the world’s most water-scarce nations, as a land assessment report Wednesday warned of the growing scale of global degradation.
RENO, Nev. (AP) — A single, desperate cry for help went through to family members too late to save a woman’s husband after the Indiana couple had been lost in Nevada’s high-desert wilderness for more than a week.
AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — A team of Jordanian and French archaeologists said Tuesday that it had found a roughly 9,000-year-old shrine at a remote Neolithic site in Jordan’s eastern desert.
The ritual complex was found in a Neolithic campsite near large structures known as “desert kites," or mass traps that are believed to have been used to corral wild gazelles for slaughter.
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Federal officials have concluded that Sonoran desert tortoises native to Arizona have a relatively stable population that doesn’t need protection from environmental threats but conservation groups say they’re still not convinced that the reptiles’ well-being is a sure thing.
RENO, Nev. (AP) — A federal appeals court has lifted a temporary ban on construction of a geothermal power plant in Nevada opposed by a tribe and conservationists who say the site is sacred and home to a rare toad being considered for endangered species protection.
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Conservationists and tribal leaders are suing the U.S. government to try to block construction of two geothermal plants in northern Nevada’s high desert that they say will destroy a sacred hot springs and could push a rare toad to the brink of extinction.
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — A tiny desert owl known for nesting in Arizona’s saguaro cactus may get some federal protection restored, according to a proposal from federal wildlife officials.
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Nevada conservationists and state wildlife officials are stepping up efforts to find and destroy hollow PVC pipes that are used to mark mining claims across the West but also serve as death traps for nesting birds that get stuck inside them.
CHACO CULTURE NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK, N.M. (AP) — A few big rigs carried oilfield equipment on a winding road near Chaco Culture National Historical Park, cutting through desert badlands and sage.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Operations are ramping up at Spaceport America in New Mexico, and the executive director told lawmakers Monday that he needs an additional $2 million in annual funding to keep the momentum going.
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Federal wildlife officials proposed endangered species protections Friday for a desert wildflower known to exist only on a remote Nevada ridge where an Australian company plans a lithium mine.
CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian scientists say the fossil of a four-legged prehistoric whale, unearthed over a decade ago in the country's Western Desert, is that of a previously unknown species. The creature, an ancestor of the modern-day whale, is believed to have lived 43 million years ago.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Huw Groucutt passes rolling sand dunes as far as his eye can see when traveling to archaeological sites in the northern Arabian Peninsula. But the same desert regions were once intermittently lush and green, attracting early humans and large animals such as hippopotamuses migrating out of Africa to linger at ancient lakes, new evidence suggests.
PHOENIX (AP) — It would be hard to find anyone who loves his job more than Freddy Fernandez-Ramirez, who claims to bleed “Sonoran green.”
The 30-year-old ranger at Saguaro National Park in southern Arizona was recruited eight years ago as part of an effort to draw younger generations to national parks.
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — Nevada-based scientists argue in a new study that wildfire smoke may increase the risk of contracting the coronavirus.
A study published last week by scientists at the Desert Research Institute found that coronavirus infection rates increased disproportionately during wildfire season in 2020, when smoke from fires in neighboring states blanketed much of northern Nevada.
VAN HORN, Texas (AP) — For years, the official letterhead for the small town of Van Horn, tucked neatly among the foothills of the Guadalupe Mountains, read simply: “Farming, ranching, mining.”
And while there is still some farming and ranching in this far West Texas community, and a talc mine still operates near the edge of town, there’s another booming business in its midst: space tourism.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is proposing rounding up more than 500 wild burros in the desert north of Lake Mead.
The feral donkeys are stripping the land of vegetation and could die off if the population isn't managed along the Arizona-Nevada line, the agency said.
BORREGO SPRINGS, Calif. (AP) — An annual count of bighorn sheep scheduled for this weekend in a Southern California desert was canceled after a volunteer died while preparing for the excursion amid scorching heat, according to a newspaper report Sunday.
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — When temperatures are sweltering in Arizona's desert areas, people head to the forests to camp, hike, fish and just cool off.
But options for finding respite from the heat will be slim now that all but one of Arizona's national forests are enacting broad shutdowns amid high fire danger and as firefighting resources run thin with blazes already burning across the state.
ROME (AP) — Armed with a search warrant, Italy’s police wildlife unit entered the house of a suspected cactus trafficker, finding over 1,000 rare cacti poached from Chile's Atacama Desert in a locked room.
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Alvaro Enciso plants three or four crosses each week in Arizona’s desert borderlands, amid the yellow-blossomed prickly pear and whip-like ocotillo, in honor of migrants who died on the northbound trek.
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Alvaro Enciso plants three or four crosses each week in Arizona's desert borderlands, amid the yellow-blossomed prickly pear and whip-like ocotillo, in honor of migrants who died on the northbound trek.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A coalition of conservation groups on Friday sued the U.S. government over the Trump administration’s decision to allow construction of a new four-lane highway through a national conservation area in southern Utah that includes protected habitat for the Mojave desert tortoise.
RENO, Nev. (AP) — An extremely rare wildflower that grows only in Nevada’s high desert where an Australian mining company wants to dig for lithium should be protected under the Endangered Species Act, the U.S.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Look closely in the desert foothills a few miles northwest of Las Vegas, and you might see shades of color dotting the cloudless landscape of cactus and mounds of dirt with mountains to the west...
RENO, Nev. (AP) — The Biden administration says a U.S. judge exceeded his authority when he gave federal wildlife officials a May 21 deadline to decide whether to formally propose endangered species protections for a rare desert wildflower at the center of a fight over a proposed lithium mine in Nevada...
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A desert city built on a reputation for excess and indulgence wants to become a model for restraint and conservation with a first-in-the-nation policy banning grass that nobody walks on...
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Few people had ever heard of Tiehm’s buckwheat when conservationists filed a petition two years ago to list the desert wildflower as an endangered species...
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Two Indigenous communities in New Mexico are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over a revised federal rule that lifts protections for many streams, creeks and wetlands across the nation, saying the federal government is violating its trust responsibility to Native American tribes...
BEIJING (AP) — China’s capital and a wide swath of the country's north were enveloped Monday in the worst sandstorm in a decade, forcing the cancelation of hundreds of flights...
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Police won't be opening a major investigation into the disappearance of a mysterious silver-colored monolith that generated international attention and a mess when curious visitors made their way to the site of the discovery in the Utah desert...
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A mysterious silver monolith that was placed in the Utah desert has disappeared less than 10 days after it was spotted by wildlife biologists performing a helicopter survey of bighorn sheep, federal officials and witnesses said...