Urban Desertscape Enhancement

Urban Desertscape Enhancement

Urban Desertscape Enhancement

The Urban Desertscape Enhancement (UDE) collaborative working group aims to educate homeowners on the importance of water conservation and native plant landscaping.

UDE focuses on increasing native desert habitat in urban areas and saving water across the Maricopa County region. Protecting local parks and preserves from invasive plants starts with you. Learn more about how you can participate in water conservation and invasive plant efforts below!

Resources

Dawn at Courthouse Rock

Coming Soon: Our Guide to desert-friendly landscaping

Help us find and map the top noxious weeds (invasive plant species) of concern for Central Arizona region using iNaturalist. These invasive plants have spread aggressively both in urban and open spaces during the last few years. Everyone can join!

Butterfly on the flowers in the garden

Maricopa Pollinator Pathway

The Maricopa Native Seed Library offers a pollinator habitat certification program specific for our region, developed by a local panel of experts.

Seed Summit 2022

Maricopa Native Seed Library

The Maricopa Native Seed Library Youtube channel features videos about native gardening in Phoenix and how to support pollinators.

SSCFinalReport

Arizona Native Plant Society Native Plant List

Visit the AZ Native Plant Society website to view native plants you can add to your landscape.

PlantsofMaricopaCounty

Sustainable Landscape Management Book

Waibel & Associates’ Sustainable Landscape Management – A Guide to Care in the Desert Southwest continues as the standard for the landscape maintenance industry. This book reviews all aspects of yard and property care and maintenance. It can be found on their website, along with information on the courses they offer.

Dawn at Courthouse Rock

Wildfire Awareness

The Sonoran Desert is not fire adapted. As climate change and invasive species transform our landscape, our desert needs your help to thrive. Take a look at our Desert Defenders wildfire infographic and learn how you can help.

Dawn at Courthouse Rock

Wildfire and Invasive Plants

Explore more information and resources from national and regional partners on wildfire and wildfire risk, invasive species, native plants, and ways to help.

More Resources

Explore more resources below by topic or location.

Project Partners

We are grateful for the support and leadership of our partners in this effort.

Desert Botanical Garden logo
Arizona Municipal Water Users Association Logo
maricopa trail
Arizona Municipal Water Users Association Logo
Website_Logo_MCP
McDowell Sonoran Conservancy logo
arizona parks and recreation association
arizona parks and recreation association

CAZCA Greenprint

CAZCA Greenprint

The CAZCA Greenprint

The Greenprint is a mapping tool designed collaboratively with the Trust for Public Land, the Nature Conservancy and Sonoran Institute. This natural infrastructure viewer can help bridge the information gap between sectors and facilitate the inclusion of natural resource data in decision-making.

While there are many kinds of data in the Greenprint, this tool offers particular insight into lands valuable for habitat connectivity, protecting water resources, and addressing both heat vulnerability and equitable access to open spaces.

Butterfly in on the flowers in garden

Greenprint Demo

Learn more about this tool for conservation. Explore the various layers, datasets and analyses done with the help local experts, along with the many uses and features.

Greenprint Support 

Interested in learning more about this tool? Contact us to request a Greenprint Training. Explore how this tool can help you and your organization protect open space.

Project Partners

We are grateful for the support and leadership of our partners in this effort.

Arizona Game & Fish logo
Desert Botanical Garden logo
The Nature Conservancy
The Trust for Public Land logo
Sonoran Institute logo

Collaboration Hub

Collaboration Hub

Collaboration Hub

The CAZCA Collaboration Hub is a pilot initiative with the goal of improving data-sharing and cross-sector collaboration. The Collaboration Hub is based on ESRI’s ArcGIS Hub platform, and we have designed our hub to share the work of our partners, facilitate collaboration, and assist in information sharing.

Follow the CAZCA Hub to begin sharing projects, resources, and data, and engage with CAZCA’s working groups and our partner’s conservation initiatives.

Butterfly in on the flowers in garden

Share Your Work

Organizations from across the region are actively working to solve conservation issues. We invite you to share your work with us to help improve knowledge and collaboration across the region.

Project Partners

We are grateful for the support and leadership of our partners in this effort.

Desert Botanical Garden logo

Desert Defenders

Desert Defenders

Desert Defenders

Invasive species are one of the biggest threats to healthy ecosystems. They often crowd out native species, decrease biodiversity and increase wildfire risk. Join the new Desert Defenders program to help us find and remove these plants!

Desert Defenders is a collaborative, community science program focused on finding, mapping and removing invasive species at local parks and preserves. The plant species that we focus on are known to have a moderate to severe impact on local ecosystems, and a few pose a risk for our community by increasing fire risk and even impacting human health.

50

Acres Removed

550+

Defenders

6000+

Data Points Collected

Project Updates

Dawn at Courthouse Rock

Wildfire Awareness

The Sonoran Desert is not fire adapted. As climate change and invasive species transform our landscape, our desert needs your help to thrive. Take a look at our Desert Defenders wildfire infographic and learn how you can help.

Dawn at Courthouse Rock

Wildfire and Invasive Plants

Explore more information and resources from national and regional partners on wildfire and wildfire risk, invasive species, native plants, and ways to help.

Dawn at Courthouse Rock

Map on iNaturalist

Help us find and map the top noxious weeds (invasive plant species) of concern for Central Arizona region using iNaturalist. These invasive plants have spread aggressively both in urban and open spaces during the last few years. Everyone can join!

More Resources

Explore more resources by topic and programs to get involved with.

Desert Defender Sign Up

Fill out our form to stay up to date on upcoming trainings, events and program updates!

Project Partners

We are grateful for the support and leadership of our partners in this effort.

Desert Botanical Garden logo
Website_Logo_MCP
McDowell Sonoran Conservancy logo
arizona parks and recreation association
maricopa trail
arizona parks and recreation association
Arizona Game & Fish logo
Arizona Game & Fish logo
Arizona Game & Fish logo
Arizona Game & Fish logo
Arizona Game & Fish logo
Arizona Game & Fish logo
Arizona Game & Fish logo
Arizona Game & Fish logo
Arizona Game & Fish logo
Arizona Game & Fish logo
Arizona Game & Fish logo
Arizona Game & Fish logo
Arizona Game & Fish logo
Arizona Game & Fish logo
Arizona Game & Fish logo
Arizona Game & Fish logo
Arizona Game & Fish logo
Arizona Game & Fish logo
Arizona Game & Fish logo
Arizona Game & Fish logo
2

Sonoran Insiders

Sonoran Insiders

HeroProject_DD

Sonoran Insiders

The Sonoran Insiders is an innovative social media ambassador program designed to link local influencers with conservation non-profits and land managers.

This new program seeks to bridge the gap across fields and industries to collaborate with local digital influencers for conservation. We believe passionate members of the community can help amplify local efforts to raise awareness on local environmental, conservation and recreational issues to foster better stewardship and conservation action.

For conservation professionals, this is a great way to leverage influencer audiences for the stewardship and responsible use of public lands and National Forests in Arizona. For our ambassadors, it’s an opportunity to have unique experiences, share and exchange knowledge, and support responsible use.

15

Ambassadors

30

Insider Events

1,016,000

Avg. Total Reach

Meet the Ambassadors

Butterfly in on the flowers in garden

Lisa Hankinson

“Social media has brought a lot of attention to many unique locations that people wouldn’t otherwise know about. As more and more people recreate on our public lands, our outdoor spaces are increasingly at risk. So, I believe that posting photographs of alluring places comes with a responsibility. We must also educate our viewers in order to ensure our natural areas are protected, conserved, and sustained.”
Butterfly in on the flowers in garden

Julie Bridwell

“Nature and the outdoors (to me) means being a member of a universal community. I feel charged and hold incredible responsibility for our preservation and evolution. In all of Mother Nature’s beauty… the concatenation of biological incident and accident, her busy work of managing coexistence, she sees me, teaches me and holds a place for me.”
Butterfly in on the flowers in garden

Sean McClue

“As part of the City of Phoenix Planning Commission back in the early 1970s, my father helped establish the Phoenix Mountain Preserve in the Central Corridor, including Camelback Mountain which was our family’s favorite place to hike. He taught us the value preserving these special places from over development for future generations so that they could experience the same places we enjoyed as a family.”

Project Partners

We are grateful for the support and leadership of our partners in this effort.

Desert Botanical Garden logo
Website_Logo_MCP
McDowell Sonoran Conservancy logo
McDowell Sonoran Conservancy logo
McDowell Sonoran Conservancy logo
McDowell Sonoran Conservancy logo
McDowell Sonoran Conservancy logo

Sonoran Seed Collaborative

Sonoran Seed Collaborative

HeroProject_DD

Sonoran Seed Collaborative

Sonoran Seed Collaborative is a native plant project dedicated to restoring our desert parks and preserves. We aim to find the best practices for growing and propagating local, native Sonoran Desert plants to harvest for seeds that can be used in future restoration projects in our area.

This project was started in 2018 in collaboration with the Arizona Columbine Garden Club, Tovrea Carraro Society, Arizona Native Plant Society, and Desert Botanical Garden as a jumping off point to support a regional network of local growers of native seeds and plants for conservation.

5

Focal Species

2.5

Acres Restored

70+

Volunteer Hours

Species Spotlight

Butterfly in on the flowers in garden

Sweetbush

The name says it all! Sweetbush (Bebbia juncea) is a Southwest native plant in the sunflower family (Asteraceae) with a sweet scent. This shrub is a favorite among pollinators and a key host plant in the Sonoran Desert. Reptiles like Chuckwallas can be seen munching on the blooms.
Butterfly in on the flowers in garden

Desert Marigold

Desert Marigold (Baileya multiradiata) is one of the most common wildflowers in both the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts. In the sunflower family (Asteraceae), this plant is a great pollinator plant with a special relationship with the Desert Marigold moth.
Butterfly in on the flowers in garden

Desert Lavender

Desert Lavender (Condea emoryi) is in the mint family (Lamiaceae) and a hardy desert plant. An important source of nectar for pollinators and drought-tolerant, this shrub also has important cultural and ethnobotanical uses.

Project Partners

We are grateful for the support and leadership of our partners in this effort.

Desert Botanical Garden logo
McDowell Sonoran Conservancy logo
maricopa trail
maricopa trail
maricopa trail
maricopa trail
maricopa trail
maricopa trail
maricopa trail
McDowell Sonoran Conservancy logo
McDowell Sonoran Conservancy logo
McDowell Sonoran Conservancy logo
maricopa trail
McDowell Sonoran Conservancy logo
McDowell Sonoran Conservancy logo
maricopa trail
Website_Logo_MCP
arizona parks and recreation association

CAZCA is an initiative of Desert Botanical Garden. Any donations made to CAZCA must be made through Desert Botanical Garden. You will now be taken to their website to complete this transaction. Thank you!
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