Gavin Newsom this week proposed for the first time a bill that would protect the western Joshua tree, a native desert plant, and prohibit anyone from importing, exporting, selling or removing the species without a state permit. The legislation, called the Western Joshua Tree Conservation Act, comes after the California Fish and Game Commission failed to act on a petition from 2019 that sought to list the tree as threatened under the California Endangered Species Act. A rise in development and climate-related events such as drought and wildfires have threatened the western Joshua tree, an iconic and ecologically critical species located across the state's desert region. Recent studies show that Joshua trees are dying off from hotter and drier conditions, and without state protections could be largely gone from the Joshua Tree National Park by the end of the century. Roughly half of the western Joshua tree's range in California is on private land and most of the habitat is not currently protected from development.

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