The official day has finally arrived! In November, President Biden announced during the annual White House Tribal Nations Summit that he intended to designate Avi Kwa Ame in Southern Nevada a national monument and last March, Secretary Haaland visited Castner Range in Texas. Today, the President honored his commitment to Tribal leaders, local elected leaders, businesses, recreationalists, and all of us by designating Avi Kwa Ame and Castner Range as national monuments via the Antiquities Act.
Take Action: Thank President Biden for designating Avi Kwa Ame and Castner Range national monuments!
Located between the Lake Mead National Recreation Area along the Nevada/Arizona border and the Mojave National Preserve in California, Avi Kwa Ame (the Mojave name for Spirit Mountain) is sacred to more than a dozen Tribes and is at the center of Yuman creation stories and spiritual ideology. The national monument includes Nevada’s largest Joshua Tree; petroglyphs; historic artifacts; rare and threatened wildlife such as the Mojave Desert tortoise and desert bighorn sheep; and Walking Box Ranch, the home of 1930s-era film stars Rex Bell and Clara Bow.
Leaders in the region have been working on protection efforts for the Avi Kwa Ame landscape since the 1990s. Over the years the effort has boasted the support of Tribal Nations; local gateway communities; Nevada’s elected leaders from Senators to local City Council members; business; recreationists; and many more communities. Thanks to their dedication, persistence, and leadership over the years today we can all celebrate.
For more than 50 years, community leaders and area residents have advocated to restore and protect Castner Range – one of El Paso’s most iconic and intact Chihuahuan Desert landscapes – for future generations. The new national monument is celebrated for its blankets of poppies each spring, protects wildlife habitat and connectivity, provides opportunity for equitable access to nature, and is home to natural waterways and arroyos that replenish the local water supply. The landscape also plays an important part in El Paso’s cultural history, dating back thousands of years to the first peoples who settled in the area.