Proposed Chuckwalla National Monument
Representative Raul Ruiz, M.D. introduced legislation last September that would designate about 645,000 acres of lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Riverside and Imperial Counties as the Chuckwalla National Monument.
CalWild was one of the founding organizations of the Protect California Deserts coalition. This coalition has continued to work on accomplishing this designation and we continue to be actively involved in this campaign. The coalition has been focused on outreach to educate the public about the proposal and to seek additional support for it. As of September 15, 2024, the coalition has received letters or resolutions of support from six Tribal Nations, approximately eight letters from Coachella Valley cities and at least eight elected officials, and 300 letters from Coachella Valley businesses. More than 170,000 individuals have also signed a petition which expresses support for the proposed national monument and asks the President to take action to designate the monument. The California legislature also unanimously passed a resolution of support for the monument’s designation.
Given that Interior Secretary Deb Haaland visited the proposal area in May and the Department of Interior held a public listening session in June, we are hopeful that the Biden Administration will act soon to designate the Chuckwalla National Monument. Stay tuned for more news!
Proposed Kw’tsán (Quechan) National Monument
Earlier this year, the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe publicly announced a campaign that calls on President Biden to protect about 390,000 acres of the Tribe’s homelands located in Imperial County as the Kw’tsán National Monument.
Recently, the California legislature unanimously passed a resolution in support of this designation. In addition, approximately 105 Imperial County businesses have thus far provided letters of support for the proposed monument. Almost 29,000 people have also signed the Tribe’s petition in support of the designation.
CalWild strongly supports this designation, which would protect a cultural landscape that is important to the Quechan Tribe and as such, has been assisting with strategy and policy guidance and whatever else has been asked of us to assist with the advancement of this campaign.
To learn more about this campaign and to sign the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe’s petition, please visit: https://www.protectkwtsan.org/.
Proposed Sáttítla National Monument
In November of 2023, the Pit River Tribe called upon President Biden to protect over 200,000 acres in the Medicine Lake Highlands of the Modoc, Klamath, and Shasta-Trinity National Forests as part of a proposed new Sáttítla National Monument that would be managed by the U.S. Forest Service as a unified whole (despite being in three different National Forests). The lands that would comprise Sáttítla have been damaged by energy extraction, mining, and poor logging practices over the decades and will almost certainly face much more abuse unless it is protected and properly managed.
CalWild and a number of partner organizations and others have been assisting the Pit River Tribe in its effort to convince President Biden to establish the proposed National Monument. CalWild has focused on leveraging our relationships built over decades in Lassen, Modoc, Shasta, and Siskiyou Counties to help the Pit River Tribe and allies build the kind of “strong and diverse local support in the affected counties” that President Biden and Senators Padilla and Butler demand of national monument proposals.
Thanks to this continuing hard work, neighboring Tribes, Senators Padilla and Butler, the California State Legislature, and a growing number of businesses, landowners, hunters and anglers, civic leaders of all kinds, and other people in the affected counties are endorsing the proposal. In September, Senators Padilla and Butler also introduced legislation in Congress to establish the Monument.
To learn more about this campaign and to sign the Pit River Tribe’s petition, please visit: https://www.protectmedicinelakehighlands.org/take-action.
Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument
President Biden expanded the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument on May 2, 2024. (President Barack Obama designated the original Monument on July 10, 2015.) However, the fact that we have achieved both a designation and an expansion of the original monument designation does not mean that our work is done. CalWild’s next steps are to begin working on the Resource Management Plan for the Monument.
The BLM is required by law to develop plans that it will use to manage these lands. These plans spell out desired goals and objectives for the landscape that will be achieved through its implementation. Additionally, they provide the agency with the guidance and actions to further those objectives and goals. The objectives and goals, included in the plan, aim to conserve and protect the monument’s important cultural, scientific, and historical values and resources (i.e., objects) above all other uses of those lands.
It is our understanding that the BLM and USFS will begin the planning process for the national monument’s RMP next year and that the BLM will be the lead agency. The first stage of the planning process is the scoping period, during which time you should raise all issues, concerns, potential impacts, and mitigation measures that you think the agencies should consider and analyze in its preparation of the draft plan alternatives. You should also let the BLM know what places and values you consider the most important (and why) and what type of management actions you think the agencies should put into the management plan. Please keep your eyes out next year for news about the scoping period.
Mojave Trails National Monument
President Obama designated Mojave Trails National Monument on February 12, 2016. However, the BLM did not begin scoping for the Monument management plan until last year. We have been following the progress of BLM’s development of the draft plan since scoping concluded on July 5, 2023.
BLM has informed us that they intend to release a draft plan after completing some inventories this winter. Once the draft plan is released, we will provide our members with an analysis of the plan alternatives and some suggested talking points in order to be of assistance with the submission of substantive comments to BLM. These comments will be important to ensure that BLM develops a plan that provides proper protection of monument objects while at the same time ensuring and enhancing opportunities to visit and recreate in the Monument.
