The Revised Recovery Plan for the Mojave Desert Tortoise guides future recovery efforts, including the establishment of regional, long-term Recovery Implementation Teams (RITs), which will bring together partners from management, scientific, conservation, and land-use groups to collaborate on planning, implementing, tracking, and evaluating recovery actions.

The primary goal of each RIT is to partner across local and regional jurisdictional boundaries to coordinate development and implementation of a 5-year recovery action plan, review progress towards recovery, and assess the effectiveness of recovery actions for the desert tortoise within logistically practical geographic boundaries. Because of the many jurisdictions involved and stakeholders interested in or affected by desert tortoise recovery, effective implementation of recovery actions will require extensive cooperation and coordination. A cooperative/coordinated effort among land managers, wildlife agencies, stakeholders, and scientists will:

• Accomplish recovery goals that would be unattainable on a local scale;
• Reduce duplication of effort and increase the efficient use of resources and expertise; and
• Provide consistent information on the status of the tortoise and recovery implementation throughout the four-state range.

The specific tasks for each RIT are to:

• Develop a science-based 5-year Recovery Action Plan (RAP) for its assigned geographical area;
• Provide/secure the necessary resources for implementation of annual work plans;
• Compile results into a range-wide database and local-level decision support system;
• Assess effectiveness of implemented recovery actions;
• Annually report findings and status to appropriate groups; and
• Annually review recovery action plans and revise as necessary.