President Joe Biden will create two California national monuments Tuesday, in a move to help fortify his conservation record as he prepares to leave office.
The new Chuckwalla National Monument and Sáttítla Highlands National Monument — located, respectively, in the desert of Southern California and in the state’s northern mountains — will be the ninth and 10th national monuments designated by Biden since he took office.
They are part of a flurry of midnight climate and conservation actions from Biden before President-elect Donald Trump takes office later this month. The president will sign proclamations — using his authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906 — creating the monuments at an event Tuesday in California’s Eastern Coachella Valley.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement Tuesday the Chuckwalla National Monument will “protect important spiritual and cultural values tied to the land and wildlife.”
“The stunning canyons and winding paths of the Chuckwalla National Monument represent a true unmatched beauty,” she said. “I am so grateful that future generations will have the opportunity to experience what makes this area so unique.”
Chuckwalla spans 624,000-acres of Southern California desert, located just south of the popular Joshua Tree National Park. The monument designation caps a decadeslong effort by Native American tribes and conservation groups to expand protections for federal lands in the Chuckwalla Valley region, which is also key to renewable energy development and a location for high-voltage power lines.
The region is rich in cultural history for the Cahuilla, Chemehuevi, Mojave, Quechan and Serrano nations, as well as other Indigenous people. The monument will be managed by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management.
The monument will add to a 600-mile, interconnected corridor of federal land, national parks and national monuments that extends from Joshua Tree National Park in California to Arches National Park in Utah. Dubbed the “Moab to Mojave Conservation Corridor,” it includes roughly 18 million acres of public land, the White House said Tuesday.
The Sáttítla Highlands monument will include 224,000 acres of California’s northern mountains, including the massive, dormant volcano Medicine Lake. The area is also steeped in Native American history and sits atop a key underground water source for California rivers. It includes parts of the Modoc, Shasta-Trinity and Klamath national forests and the new monument will be managed by the Forest Service.
“This landscape, which has been occupied by Indigenous peoples for more than 5,000 years, continues to be integral to Tribal religious and cultural practices despite a history of forced dispossession,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in a statement Tuesday. “Establishing this monument takes a step toward recognizing the history of exclusion of Tribal Nations on these lands.”
