In 1906, the United States Congress passed the Antiquities Act to help prevent the looting and destruction of tribal lands by greedy and careless people.
That law is being invoked by an American president for nearly the 300th time for the creation of the Chuckwalla National Monument in the Coachella Valley of Southern California.
The new designation, to be made by President Joe Biden ahead of leaving office in mid-January, preserves a huge swath of desert wilderness—624,000 acres—located a few miles south of the popular Joshua Tree National Park and north of the Salton Sea.
The new preserve gives visitors a prime location for observing the effects of the famed San Andreas Fault on the landscape.
The designation followed years of lobbying by Indigenous groups whose ties to the land are so strong that they extend past recorded history. The creation of the national monument also had the endorsement of every major city in the area and of more than 300 businesses, business groups, local chambers of commerce, and nearly 400 scientists.
“We are happy to see the designation to protect this area that contains thousands of cultural places and objects of vital importance to [our] history and identity,” Joseph Mirelez, tribal chairman of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, told the Desert Sun newspaper. His tribe is one of nine nations of the Cahuilla Indians who have ancient ties to the newly protected area, which contains active worship sites and thousands of sacred relics.
Donald Madart, Jr., a council member with the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian tribe, told reporters that the protections “provide us an opportunity to continue religious freedoms of the native people of this land … It’s a lot bigger than just the protection of a landscape for beauty purposes.”
The new national monument “only reserve[s] federal lands, not State or private lands,” the White House said in its announcement.
The designation makes up part of the newly established Moab to Mojave Conservation Corridor, a chain of federally protected preserves that stretches from Southern California to the Canyonlands of Utah and includes Avi Kwa Ame National Monument, protected by Biden last year, and Bears Ears National Monument, which was established by Barack Obama in 2016, downsized by the first Trump administration in 2017, and restored to full protection by Biden in 2023.
Biden’s administration promised local groups that the federal government intends to share governance of Chuckwalla National Monument with Indigenous tribes, a pledge that local leaders hope the incoming Trump administration will honor.
Things to see in Chuckwalla National Monument
Chuckwalla, located about 55 miles east of Palm Springs and 160 miles east of Los Angeles, comprises several distinct and undeveloped regions, each with its own topography and tourist appeal.
The Mecca Hills area includes the 4.4-mile Ladder Canyon (pictured at the top of this post) and Painted Canyon loop hike and a labyrinth of narrow slot canyons that were carved by flash flooding along the San Andreas Fault. Geologists say some of the rock is as old as 1.5 billion years.
The Corn Springs oasis, also formed by the San Andreas Fault, was, according to the Protect Chuckwalla National Monument advocacy group, “originally inhabited by the Chemehuevi, and other Tribes” and “has one of the finest examples of petroglyph rock art in the Colorado Desert, dating as far back as 10,000 years.” A popular spot for camping, Corn Springs is a critical site for birds migrating across the desert.
Additionally, the area includes the 70-mile Bradshaw Trail, a dirt road that was the first established road across the Coachella Valley. Once a stagecoach route, the trail offers great panoramas of the Orocopia Mountains, Chuckwalla Mountains, and Mule Mountains, where rock colors range from dark red to black and where visitors can spot endemic desert bighorn sheep, Agassiz’s desert tortoise, and burro deer.
During World War II, General George Patton established the Desert Training Center in the region to prepare American troops for overseas combat. Acording to Protect Chuckwalla, “remnants of the sites including walkways, driveways, structures, and mosaic insignias of different military units” can still be found.
The land is habitat to some 50 rare species of plants and animals, including the chuckwalla lizard (pictured below) and the Mecca aster, a small shrub with purple-blue flowers that only grows here.
(Credit: GoodFocused / Shutterstock)
Designating land as a national monument is often the first step toward its enshrinement as a national park.
Nearby Joshua Tree was named a national monument in 1936 and was finally elevated to full national park status in 1994.
“The new monument will enhance the connectivity of wildlife habitat and safeguard clean water for more than 40 million people by protecting the Colorado River region, while providing exceptional outdoor recreation opportunities for historically underserved communities in the Coachella Valley,” said the White House statement.
The White House also says the new national monument will “allow the construction and expansion of electric transmission and distribution within the monument to transport clean energy to western cities.”
In total, the Biden administration has protected 674 million acres, a conservation record for a single U.S. president.
(Credit: Cheri Alguire / Shutterstock)