The Fourth Chihuahuan Desert Conference has its schedule posted, its dates settled and a registration deadline of October 20. It runs at the El Paso Zoo and Botanical Gardens on November 4 and 5, with an optional third morning on November 6.
The dates moved slightly from what was first advertised. The conference was announced for November 4, 5 and 6, and the organizers did not receive enough presentation proposals to fill a third day of sessions, so all presentations now conclude on November 5. Rather than drop the sixth, they kept it: at 9 a.m. that morning there is a Conference Committee meeting open to anyone who wants a hand in planning the next one.
What a desert conference is for
The Chihuahuan Desert runs across the border country of west Texas and southern New Mexico and a long way down into north-central Mexico, and the National Park Service calls it North America’s largest desert. The Service keeps a standing inventory and monitoring network covering seven parks inside it, which tells you the shape of the problem: the ecosystem does not respect the jurisdictions that study it, and the people studying it are scattered across two countries and a lot of institutions.
A conference is the cheap fix for that problem. It is the one place in the year where the people who study the desert, teach it, work to protect it, or simply live in it end up in the same room for two days.
Rick LoBello, writing on the zoo’s conservation education blog, says registration is running well enough that this year may break the attendance records of the two previous Chihuahuan Desert Conferences held at the El Paso Zoo.
The tours are the other half
Two post-conference tours close out the schedule. One visits Keystone Heritage Park; the other is sponsored by the Frontera Land Alliance. Both are built on the premise that a visitor who has flown in to talk about the Chihuahuan Desert should get outside and stand in some of it before flying home, which is a sound instinct and not every conference acts on it.
Can the public go?
Registration is open and closes on October 20, so anyone planning to attend needs to move before then. The zoo’s conservation education office is handling questions about the conference and about what else is worth seeing in El Paso and the surrounding desert for anyone traveling in.
Holding it at the zoo rather than at a conference center is itself the point. An institution that already spends its days explaining regional wildlife to the public, as El Paso does with its daily keeper presentations, is a reasonable host for the people doing the underlying science.
Quick answers
- When and where is the Chihuahuan Desert Conference?
The Fourth Chihuahuan Desert Conference runs on November 4 and 5, 2026 at the El Paso Zoo and Botanical Gardens, with an optional third morning on November 6.
- Did the dates change?
Yes. The conference was first advertised for November 4, 5 and 6. The organizers did not receive enough presentation proposals to fill a third day of sessions, so all presentations now conclude on November 5. November 6 was kept for a Conference Committee meeting at 9 a.m., open to anyone who wants a hand in planning the next conference.
- When does registration close?
October 20, 2026.
- Are there field trips?
Two post-conference tours close the schedule. One visits Keystone Heritage Park and the other is sponsored by the Frontera Land Alliance.
- How big is the Chihuahuan Desert?
The National Park Service calls it North America's largest desert. It runs across west Texas and southern New Mexico and a long way down into north-central Mexico, and the Service keeps a standing inventory and monitoring network covering seven parks inside it.
