Last week President Biden continued the bipartisan executive tradition of conserving historic and scientifically significant lands by designating Spirit Mountain—Avi Kwa Ame, in Nevada as a National Monument.
Sacred to several Native American tribes, principally the people of the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation, Spirit Mountain sits at the confluence of the Mojave and Sonoran deserts at the southernmost point of Nevada.
The designation covers 506,000 acres, one of the largest tracts of land to come under federal protection since Biden took office, and will conjoin with the existing Ireteba Peaks National Wilderness.
Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, herself a native of the Pueblo peoples, held roundtable talks with the Mohave and other tribes in September of last year to discuss the need to conserve the area.
The slopes and flatlands around Avi Kwa Ame are dotted with important sites dating to modern Indian times but also back as far as the neolithic period. Rock Shelters, petroglyphs, and sacred sites will all be sheltered under the National Monument designation.
“Avi Kwa Ame is the point of Mojave creation; it’s a very important and integral part of our history and belief system,” Ashley Hemmers, the tribal administrator for Fort Mojave, told CNN. “For us, that mountain is a living landscape; it’s like a person. If something were to happen to it, it would be like losing a loved one.”
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Beyond the irreplaceable value of the landscape to the Mohave, Gila monster, desert bighorn sheep, desert tortoise, and centuries-old Joshua trees are among the species that can be found on this diverse desert landscape.
The monument includes all of the Spirit Mountain, South McCullough, Wee Thump Joshua Tree, Nellis Wash, and Bridge Canyon. It borders Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Mojave Trails National Monument, Mojave National Preserve, and Castle Mountains National Monument thereby creating a much larger contiguously protected area of the Mojave Desert, and opens the door to an eventual conversion of the whole area, perhaps one day, to a National Park.
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About time.
Thank you.
Nya Weh.