Jan 7, 2025
In its final days, the Biden Administration took significant steps to protect the nation’s lands and waters in what followed an already very active holiday season in which the administration continued to honor its promise to conserve special places, protect communities and act on climate change.
“These actions are helping advance the President’s America the Beautiful initiative,” the White House said on Monday, “which is supporting locally led conservation efforts with a goal to protect, conserve, and restore at least 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.”
To advance that promise after the administration departs, the America the Beautiful for All Coalition says our work will shift to multiple fronts to advance community led conservation by working at the state level, with the private sector, and finding bipartisan cooperation at the federal level while continuing to fiercely defend the progress made in recent years.
A Rich Desert Tapestry at Chuckwalla. The administration will shortly heed the call of several tribes and bipartisan leaders in California by creating the Chuckwalla National Monument. The size of the monument is not yet confirmed, but could exceed the proposed 627,000 acres of existing public lands south of I-10. The area runs from the Coachella Valley region eastward and could also include protection of 17,000 acres of public lands adjoining the Joshua Tree National Park.
The desert expanse hosts desert tortoise, Bighorn sheep, endangered Sonoran pronghorn, and native fan palms as well as the chuckwalla lizard.
“Since time immemorial, our tribes — the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians and the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe — and our sister tribes have been the guardians of the California Desert. Some may see the desert as desolate and uninhabited, but this place encompasses our origins, history, ancient sites, trails, and more. The desert is a rich tapestry of our heritage; it’s a living, breathing testament to our people’s resilience, our history, and our spiritual connection with nature. Our footprints have been etched into the landscape since the beginning of time and we continue to provide stewardship over these lands and advocate for their protection,” Thomas Tortez Jr. of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians and Jordan D. Joaquin of the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe recently said in a joint statement to Indian Country Today.
Sáttítla Gains Protection From Energy Development. A new monument up the coast is also coming. For millennia, Sáttítla, also known as the Medicine Lake Highlands in Northern California has been a significant spiritual place to the Pit River and Modoc Nations. The varied landscape includes white pumice, lava flows clear lakes, mountain vistas and ice caves. The land and water serves as habitat for wildlife like trout, Sierra Martens, bald eagles, black bears, and northern spotted owls.
Last fall, 53 outdoor recreation businesses joined the call for the Biden Administration to designate Sáttítla in Northern California as a national monument. From the outdoor industry to brewers, banks, and sportsmen, these businesses represent industries that rely heavily on the protection of the outdoors for their bottom line. The Medicine Lake Recreation Area currently receives over 40,000 visitors per year to enjoy 100 miles of trails, fishing, swimming, camping, and biking.
Coasts Get Unprecedented Protection. And now on the books, immediately following the New Year’s holiday, President Biden banned new offshore oil and gas drilling along most of the U.S. coastline, in an amount totaling 625 million acres of ocean along America’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts, the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Bering Sea. This is an historic commitment as the largest oil and gas mineral withdrawal on record which will protect U.S. coastal communities from pollution, the impacts of climate change and prevent continued loss of ocean biodiversity that is in rapid decline.
“As the climate crisis continues to threaten communities across the country and we are transitioning to a clean energy economy, now is the time to protect these coasts for our children and grandchildren,” President Biden said in announcing the news.
Nearly forty percent of Americans live in coastal counties that rely on a healthy ocean to thrive. With today’s action under his power derived from the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the president is helping to ensure that these regions are placed at less risk of oil spills.
In four years, the Biden administration has made record progress in bringing the nation closer to its goal of protecting 30 percent of lands and waters by 2030. But much work remains for conservation advocates and champions alike, and with an incoming Trump administration promising to undo the Biden order, the challenges will be profound and the hill harder to climb.
