Here's the tldr: We invite Cadiz Inc. to partner with our environmental nonprofit to grow a Tiny Forest at each of their proposed Water Pumping Stations.

(We can even call it the Cadiz Oasis Network.)

 

 

 

Dear Cadiz Inc.,

We are writing to you directly, in the form of an Open Letter. Not with a lawsuit or a protest sign, but with a proven concept in hand.

We are For Every Star, A Tree, a community-led nonprofit working to heal desertified Earth in the Mojave Desert. We do this by planting native "Tiny Forests" throughout the region.

We recently published an Op-Ed in response to the federal approval of your groundwater pipeline project. In that piece, we shared our perspective, which we are certain you agree with:

Water in the desert is not merely a resource to be extracted and sold, but a miracle to be tended and regenerated.

That's why we are publicly extending this open invitation to Cadiz Inc:

Let's grow a network of native "Tiny Forests" near each of your proposed pump stations:

We believe in transcending political aisles and adversarial arguments in service to the global, environmental good. This Open Letter serves as an invitation to pioneer an initiative to rejuvenate the Mojave Desert landscape, and become a beacon of water cycle restoration in the heart of the desert.

Our proposal to grow native "Tiny Forests" doesn't come out of thin air. In fact, our first "Tiny Forest in the Desert" is a 45-minute drive from one of your proposed water pumping stations.

Your team is more than invited to visit and learn our "Tiny Forest" methods*, and replicate our small success on a much grander, ambitious scale.

How You Can Help

We understand that your company has invested decades and significant resources into the Cadiz Water Project. We understand that you believe this project will bring reliable water supplies to under-served communities in California. We may disagree on methods, but we believe we share a common goal: ensuring water security for communities that need it.

Here is what we know: the Mojave Desert is listening. It has been listening for thousands of years to those who treat it as a resource to be taken from, and it has been responding with increasing fragility: drier wells, smaller aquifers, and ecosystems pushed to the brink.

The good news? The desert is also listening to those who come with humility and care. Since 2021, we have been growing our Tiny Forest in the Desert on a simple 10 acres. In that time, we have watched birds return to branches that didn't exist. We have felt the temperature drop as our growing canopy creates shade where there was once brutal, unrelenting sun. We have inhaled the scent of living soil where there was once only inert dirt.

We have been growing our own regenerative water-saving "battery" into the Earth: not by extracting or mining, but by putting it back.

Here's Our Ask: Help Us Grow A Constellation of Tiny Forests across the Mojave Desert

Instead of asking you to abandon your project, we are asking you to join us in proving there is another way.

We are asking Cadiz Inc. to help us expand our "Tiny Forest in the Desert" site into a constellation of 7 native Tiny Forests across the Mojave Desert.

Help us grow 7 Tiny Forests at or near each of your 7 Water Pumping Stations.

Here is why this matters:

1. Regenerative Agriculture works. Our Tiny Forest is demonstrating that desertified land can be restored. When we turn sand into soil that holds moisture, we are not only sequestering carbon; we are recharging the underground water systems that everyone, including your company, depends on. A healthy desert ecosystem does not compete with water extraction...it supports it.
2. This is an opportunity for meaningful engagement. The Cadiz Water Project has faced significant opposition from environmental groups, Native American tribes, and concerned citizens. By partnering with us to grow a thriving oasis, your company would demonstrate a genuine commitment to the desert...not just as a source of water to be piped elsewhere, but as a living landscape to be healed and honored.
3. The optics—and the reality—are powerful. A network of 7 10-acre oases in the Mojave, supported by a water company, would be a beacon of hope in a landscape that is increasingly marked by extraction and depletion. It would show that Cadiz Inc. is not simply taking from the desert, but giving back to it.

What Partnership Could Look Like

We envision a true collaboration. We are open to discussing what form this partnership might take:

• Financial support: Resources to expand our irrigation systems, purchase native plants, and hire staff to maintain and monitor the entire network of Cadiz Oasis Network.
• Technical expertise: Your team's knowledge of water systems could help us design even more efficient water-capture and retention systems for our forest.
• Land partnership: If Cadiz Inc. holds land that could be restored, we would welcome the opportunity to bring our regenerative methods to additional acres.
• Co-branding and visibility: As we grow, we would be honored to recognize Cadiz Inc. as a partner in restoration, showing the world that your company is invested not just in extracting water, but in returning it to the earth.

We hope this Open Letter can be viewed as an investment in a different kind of legacy:

Instead of being viewed as corporate extraction and greed, the Cadiz Oasis Network will be remembered as a brave act of climate hope.

A Vision Beyond Extraction

Cadiz Inc., the world is watching how companies respond to the climate crisis. The era of extractive development is being challenged not only by activists and regulators, but by the land itself. We all see it. It's in the aquifers that don't refill, the soils that lose their capacity to hold water, the ecosystems that collapse under the weight of overuse.

You have an opportunity to be part of a different story.

Our Tiny Forest in the Desert is small: just a speck of green in a vast, desertified landscape. But it is growing.

And with your help, it could grow into something truly transformative:

The Cadiz Inc. Oasis Network, where 7 native "Tiny Forests in the Desert" can prove that the desert doesn't need to be drained to support life.

It just needs to be healed.

We believe you share our commitment to water security. We believe you understand that water is life. Now we are inviting you to demonstrate that belief not only through extraction, but through regeneration.

The pipeline has been approved. The water will flow. But alongside that flow, there is room—urgent, necessary room—for roots to take hold, for canopy to spread, for the desert to become, once again, a place where life thrives.

Will you join us?

We would welcome the opportunity to meet with you, to show you our Tiny Forest, and to discuss how we might grow the Cadiz Oasis Network together.

Please reach out to us at ForEveryStarATree.org.

The desert is waiting.

Love from the Land,
For Every Star, A Tree
We believe in Earthcare > Doomscrolling

"For every gallon of water that is taken away, we are putting ten gallons back into the soil."