With less than two weeks left in his presidency, President Joe Biden designated two new national monuments in the West. Biden signed proclamations Tuesday creating the Chuckwalla National Monument and the Sáttítla Highlands National Monument, both in California, covering 848,000 acres of land.

Tribal communities in Northern California’s mountainous interior are celebrating the recent designation of Sáttítla Highlands National Monument after decades of advocacy work to increase land protections in the area.

Creation of the Chuckwalla National Monument preserves more than 600,000 acres. Bad weather cancels president’s speech.

Chuckwalla National Monument is a cornerstone in a vast network of protected landscapes across the Southwest. Stretching from Joshua Tree to the Grand Canyon to Bears Ears, this corridor forms the largest swath of protected lands in the continental U.

President Joe Biden announced that a monument dedicated to the women's suffrage movement would be placed on the National Mall.

The 624,000-acre Chuckwalla National Monument is located just south of Joshua Tree National Park, where the Mojave and Colorado deserts meet. The Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe and Colorado River Indian Tribes maintain ancestral ties to the area.

Sunset Arch temporarily lost federal protections after Trump eliminated millions of acres from Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments in 2017. Photo: Courtesy of the U.S. Bureau o