Tanque Verde Habitat HostsWelcome to the Habitat

Become a Tanque Verde Habitat Host

Changing the way you treat your own property inspires those around you to do the same.

Tanque Verde Habitat Host sign on a single post, painted with a saguaro, a hummingbird flying right, desert foliage and rocks.

Your property makes a difference

Take heart from what neighborhood-scale effort can do. In New Zealand, nearly 200 Predator Free backyard groups — ordinary streets, coordinated by volunteers — have helped native birds return to entire cities. In Canada, volunteers of the Butterflyway Project have planted native pollinator gardens through yards, schoolyards and parks in more than a hundred communities, stitching habitat corridors through cities one garden at a time.

Tanque Verde Habitat Hosts work the same way. Enough yards acting together behave like one large reserve. Every intact desert yard connects the ecosystem we live within. Please add your yard by becoming a Tanque Verde Habitat Host.

Habitat Host Commitments

Habitat Hosts steward desert vegetation on their own property (outside of necessary structural elements such as houses, garages, walls, driveways, and inner patios).

There are six commitments:

  1. Preserving the native Sonoran desert vegetation where it exists and abstaining from reducing it further.
  2. Attempting to restore areas of native desert where it has been damaged.
  3. Adding biodiversity where it has been reduced by reintroducing native plants that belong to this bioregion.
  4. Reducing and managing invasive species.
  5. Sharing resources and your experience with neighbors should they be interested in doing the same.
  6. Suggesting how we can improve our Tanque Verde Habitat Host online resources and provide further support to homeowners attempting to preserve and restore native vegetation on their property.

The steps and supportive resources for these commitments have been laid out in the Tanque Verde Valley Homeowners Conservation Guide, which has been specifically designed for the ecology of this valley. Additional resources such as the Native Plant Index Tanque Verde Valley, the Wildfire Guide, and the Invasive Plant Index can also be found within this site.

Optional: Display a Tanque Verde Habitat Host yard sign, visibly making a pledge to help protect Sonoran Desert on your own property. This sign not only explains your yard to your neighbors, it encourages them to add their own yard to the network of properties preserving native plants and animals.

Sign up as a Habitat Host