A tribe that has long sought protection for hundreds of thousands of acres of California land it considers sacred is about to get its wish fulfilled.
President Biden is expected to sign a proclamation creating new national monuments at Chuckwalla and Satitra this week after Tuesday’s ceremony at Chuckwalla, south of Joshua Tree National Park, was canceled due to high winds. are.
At 624,000 acres, Chuckwalla stretches from the Coachella Valley to the Colorado River and is the fifth largest land-based national monument in the continental United States. This area is the ancestral homeland of the Cahuilla Indians and other tribes of the Tres Martinez Desert who led the way in protecting the land.
Sattitra includes more than 224,000 acres of lush forests and pristine lakes near the Oregon border. The Pitt River Nation, which spearheaded the designation movement, considers the Medicine Lake Highlands region near Mount Shasta its own creation.
The move bears the imprint of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who was the first Native American to serve as Cabinet secretary and is credited with giving tribal voices a boost in land management decisions.
At a reception after the event, which was canceled last week, Haaland recalled visiting the site that would become Chuckwalla last year. She detailed what she heard first-hand from various stakeholders about the importance of landscapes and how she was determined to “preserve and respect them for current and future generations.”
“Well, I almost did it,” she said, nodding at the delay.
“There are multiple reasons why today is not the goal,” she added. “This monument and this landscape still need you. We need champions who share why protected lands strengthen local economies. Getting land management planning right requires stakeholders to We need the cooperation of our friends to reach its full potential for plants, animals and visitors.”
The planned designation would protect a total of 848,000 acres of land in California. With the new proclamation, Biden used executive authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to designate 10 national monuments and expand or change several more, including two in the Golden State. It turns out.
He will also have saved more land and water than any president in history, according to the White House. Biden on Monday took steps to protect the East and West Coasts and the northern Bering Sea from offshore oil and gas drilling, which President-elect Donald Trump said he would rescind “on day one.” Ta.
Supporters had called on Biden to build the monument before Trump is inaugurated on January 20. During his first term, Trump reduced the footprint of two Utah national monuments, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, and stripped marine monument protections. Biden reversed this change.
A male chuckwall lizard in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Chuckwalla National Monument is named after the stocky reptile.
(Ernie Cowan/San Diego Union-Tribune)
A coalition led by tribal leaders argues that future monuments in California will protect numerous wildlife and culturally significant sites while blocking resource extraction, including clean energy, and housing development. There is.
Near the site where the signing ceremony was scheduled, California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot praised the collaborative efforts that led to the designation as a paradigm shift.
“This represents a new conservation model in which environmental organizations actually work to support tribal leaders who promote conservation efforts,” he said.
Opponents of the latest monument, including small-scale miners, off-road enthusiasts and some local elected officials, fear the designation will hamper recreation as well as economic and energy opportunities. are. Critics believe Mr. Biden abused his executive power and hope the next administration will reverse the president’s actions.
Greg Smith, 40, parked along the road leading to where Biden was scheduled to speak, and raised an American flag atop his recreational vehicle in the fierce winds. “Biden Leave Our Desert Alone” was written in blue tape on the back of the car.
Smith, a Palm Desert resident, said she worries the monument status means it will be severed from the land.
“We’re going to lose our family’s favorite campsite,” he said, looking at his 11-year-old daughter Katherine.
Three California Democrats, Sen. Alex Padilla and former Sen. LaFonza Butler, along with Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Palm Desert), introduced a bill in April to designate Chuckwalla National Monument. Then, in September, Padilla and Butler introduced a bill to establish Sattitra National Monument. Neither bill passed in a divided Congress.
Chuckwalla Monument begins on the west side of Painted Canyon, where the mountainside is painted in deep reds, pinks, greens, and grays. For the Cahuilla Indians of the Tres Martinez Desert, the red color of the hills and canyon walls is a sign of the bleeding heart of their creator, Mukat.
“We are pleased that this designation protects this area, which contains thousands of cultural sites and objects of great significance to the history and identity of the Tres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians,” said Tribal Chairman Joseph D.L. Mireles said.
Lewis said the monument, created by a diverse coalition, shows that land conservation and renewable energy expansion can go hand in hand. Negotiations saw the monument’s boundaries reduced to “allow for growth potential and grid pipeline maintenance and upgrades,” and ultimately won support from renewable energy and utility groups, he said. said.
Some local politicians opposed the designation. Johnny Rodriguez, deputy mayor of Blyth, a community of about 18,000 people on the eastern edge of the monument, worries that economic development in the area will be stunted.
He said the natural gas pipes and heavy electrical lines serving the area are within the boundaries of the new monument, which could limit future expansion of these lines, and that the large scale construction in Blyth could limit future expansion of these lines. He said it could be more difficult and expensive for developers of scale projects to access them. .
Blyth City Council issued a statement over the summer opposing the designation.
But other nearby communities are also participating. Palm Desert, a city of more than 50,000 people near Palm Springs, passed a resolution in support of the monument.
Palm Desert City Councilman Evan Truby said the designation will bring the area to the attention of tourists and attract them and their dollars.
He said the money raised through taxes helps provide local services, adding that low-income areas in the eastern Coachella Valley could benefit from an infusion of capital.
“I think it would make a huge difference if tourism dollars could be spent in these communities,” he says.
In addition to its namesake chuckwalla lizard, the area is also home to bighorn sheep, desert tortoises, kangaroo rats, burrowing owls, and jackrabbits. An American Progress Center analysis found the area to be one of California’s most ecologically connected regions. In other words, its protection allows wild animals to traverse vast tracts of land unhindered.
The designation creates a nearly continuous protected area that extends from the state’s southern border into southern Nevada and the eastern Sierra Nevada, the analysis said.
But off-roaders, rockhounds and prospectors who mine small rights in the area have expressed concerns that protections will hinder their use of the land.
Greg Herring, a retired Marine Corps major with a small mining interest in the Eagle Mountains, called the move an “atrocity” and said he would join others in asking President Trump to revoke the designation. Ta. Herring maintains that the land is already adequately protected by existing designations and worries that the designation will interfere with recreational activities that he and other disabled veterans find therapeutic. are.
About 1,250 miles to the north, the newly established Sattitra National Monument will also protect lands associated with Native American creation stories.
“For Pitt River people, this is the actual place where we were created and is a very sacred place in our people’s story,” said Brandi McDaniels of the Pitt River Nation.
The monument sits on a stunning natural landscape in parts of the Shasta-Trinity, Klamath, and Modoc National Forests. There are lush green forests, an abundance of wildflowers, an intricate cave system, and potable water available on site.
It is also called the Headwaters of California because its lakes and aquifers help provide clean drinking water to other parts of the state.
The Pitt River Tribe has long been involved in lawsuits to block geothermal development in the area, and monument status would prevent similar efforts from moving forward, McDaniels said.
But some renewable energy advocates argue that the designation would eliminate an important source of clean energy that would advance the Biden administration’s agenda to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Jenny Roland Shea, director of public lands policy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, said President Trump’s record on public lands leaves many wondering whether the monument movement will get a second term. He said that the timing of Biden’s designation is key, given that the country has .
Still, it’s not a given that President Trump would seek to lift these protections or refrain from further land protections, Roland Shea said. Conservation has historically been a bipartisan issue popular with a wide range of voters, and presidents on both sides of the aisle, including Trump, have secured public lands in the past.
On the other hand, the conservative “Project 2025” strategy paper, which President Trump kept aloof from publicly during the campaign, selects contributors to roles in his administration, and is “quite strict” regarding nature conservation. ” said Roland Shea.
“It all depends on who the Trump administration decides to side with: insider special interests who are pushing the president to lift protections on these areas so that industry can drill and mine all these places. Or are they thinking about the American people who, poll after poll, really like their national monuments?” she said.
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