Couple who bulldozed 36 Joshua trees to build home fined $18,000, CA officials say
A couple was fined $18,000 after California officials said they bulldozed dozens of Joshua trees to make room for their home.
Douglas Poston, the supervising deputy district attorney for the Morongo Basin, said Jeffrey Walter and Jonetta Nordberg-Walter face 36 misdemeanor charges — one for each tree they removed — and were fined $9,000 apiece on June 22, the Hi-Desert Star reported. Each misdemeanor charge is punishable by up to six months in prison and $4,100 in fines.
“It is unlawful to remove these trees. It is a violation that will be investigated thoroughly and prosecuted,” said Patrick Foy, a captain with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, according to the publication.
On Feb. 11, a Morongo Basin resident saw two people “uprooting Joshua trees to make way for a single-family home,” Foy said, according to the Hi-Desert Star. The couple buried the trees on their property, according to Foy.
The neighbor warned the couple that the trees couldn’t be removed but the couple thought that it was legal because they were small and “under a certain diameter,” said Douglas Poston, supervising deputy district attorney with the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“But that’s not accurate, obviously,” Poston said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a foot tall or 20 feet tall, it’s under that protection.”
Foy said a state wildlife officer arrived and 36 Joshua trees were already buried in a “giant hole,” according to the publication.
The couple can pay the fine or earn credit by volunteering for Joshua Tree National Park or the Mojave Desert Land Trust, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The California Fish and Game Commission voted Sept. 22, 2020, to grant Joshua trees legal protection under the California Endangered Species Act, giving them protected status for a year pending a review to decide if the trees should be protected formally under state law, according to a Center for Biological Diversity news release.
The California Endangered Species Act, enacted 1970, protects around 250 species and forbids any of the species, including any part or product of the animal or plant, from being exported, killed, purchased possessed or sold without authorization.
Studies show Joshua trees are dying off due to developers bulldozing the species to make room for other projects, climate change and fires, the Center for Biological Diversity release states. Scientists said in 2019 that the trees will be gone from Joshua Tree National Park “by the end of the century.”
“Before state protections went into effect, developers were bulldozing Joshua trees by the thousands to build roads, power lines, strip malls and vacation rentals,” said Brendan Cummings, the Center for Biological Diversity’s conservation director. “If these beautiful plants are to have any hope of surviving in a warming world, we have to stop killing them. The California Endangered Species Act may be the only hope for saving these iconic symbols of the Mojave Desert.”