Landscape Architect Articles

Protecting the California Desert02-17-16 | News

Protecting the California Desert
Obama Designates Three National Monuments

Spanning 1.6 million acres, including 400,000 acres that Congress previously designated as wilderness, the Mojave Trails National Monument offers rugged mountains, ancient lava flows and sand dunes. The area encompasses Native American trading routes, World War II-era training camps and a 105-mile stretch of old Route 66 between Ludlow and Needles, the longest remaining undeveloped stretch of that iconic roadway. The area has been a focus of geological research and ecological studies on the effects of climate change and land management practices on ecological communities and wildlife.
*Photo: Whitehouse.gov under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.*

Noting that "it's our responsibility to protect these [landscape] treasures for future generations, just as previous generations protected them for us," President Obama on Feb. 12, 2016, designated three new "national monuments" in the California desert: Mojave Trails, Sand to Snow and Castle Mountains. This provides federal protection of 1.8 million acres of desert land between Palm Springs and the Nevada border.

Encompassing 154,000 acres, including just over 100,000 acres of already congressionally-designated wilderness, Sand to Snow National Monument supports more than 240 species of birds and 12 threatened and endangered wildlife species. San Gorgonio Mountain dominates the landscape, arising 11,500 feet above the floor of the Sonoran Desert. The monument has an estimated 1,700 Native American petroglyphs, and 30 miles of the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail. The area is a favorite for camping, hiking, hunting, horseback riding, photography, wildlife viewing and skiing.
*Photo: Whitehouse.gov under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.*

Congress can establish "national monument" status through legislation, or the president can do so under the authority of the 1906 Antiquities Act. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has been lobbying Congress for a decade to have more lands included in the 1994 California Desert Protection Act, but without success. The California Desert Protection Act created the 7.6 million-acre Mojave National Preserve, and made Death Valley and Joshua Tree national parks.

The 20,920-acre Castle Mountains National Monument is an integral piece of the Mojave Desert with its jagged peaks and landscape of Joshua trees, pinyon pines, barrel and cholla cacti and rare native desert grasslands. Wildlife includes golden eagles, bighorn sheep, mountain lions and bobcats.
*Photo: Whitehouse.gov under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.*

President Obama has now protected more than 265 million acres of land and water, more than any other administration. Last year the president designated much of the Angeles National Forest as the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument.

Declaring these desert lands "monuments" does not include federal funding. Much of the land was purchased more than a decade ago by private citizens and the Wildlands Conservancy, then donated to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.