How decades of hard-earned protections and restoration reversed the collapse of California’s treasured Mono Lake
In 1994, under court orders, the state finalized a plan to repair the damage to the 780-square mile Mono Basin watershed driven by the human-caused drought. Without protection, the lake’s ecosystem probably would have collapsed sometime early in the 2000s under the combined pressure of water diversions and global warming. Its persistence suggests that protected ecosystems are more resilient than vulnerable ones, and that helping nature heal itself more effectively prevents their decline than drastic technological and engineering interventions.