Crossroads Conference Will Feature Challenges to the Park

Joshua Tree National Park will wind down its year-long, 75th Anniversary celebration with a two-day public event starting on December 2, 2011. The Crossroads Conference, featuring presentations by notable subject-matter experts on Joshua Tree National Park, will be held in the auditorium at the University of California, Riverside, Palm Desert Graduate Center and run from 12:30 to 4 pm. The following day, December 3, conference participants will take a guided tour of the park, Coachella Valley's 794,000-acre neighbor to the north. Buses will pick up participants at 9 am at the conference site, as well as at Desert Springs High School, and return to those locations at 2 pm.

The Crossroads Conference is open to the public and will address some of the challenges facing southern California's largest national park as it completes its first 75 years and looks forward to the National Park Service Centennial in 2016. Topics to be discussed include the potential effects of global climate change at Joshua Tree National Park, including impacts on individual park species and native ecosystems. Developing climate change science, monitoring programs, and adaptation strategies in the national parks will also be discussed.

Crossroads Conference presentations and field trips are free of charge. For more information call Joshua Tree's 75th Anniversary Coordinator George Land at 760 367-5507 or email, [e-mail].

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the park into existence with a presidential proclamation in 1936. The entire year of 2011 has been a commemorative celebration complete with numerous cultural, scientific and outreach events designed to highlight interest and awareness in Joshua Tree National Park and the benefits it brings to Californians and the nation (see www.jtnp75.org).