The Sonoran Desert area known as Kw’tsan in California’s Imperial County features mountain peaks, rivers and undisturbed desert landscapes. These landscapes are home to woodhouse toads, desert tortoises, Yuma kingsnakes and coyotes. Plant species include desert agave, desert milkweed, yellow palo verde, saguaro cactus and many more. These flora and fauna all play unique and important roles in maintaining the ecological well-being of the Imperial Valley.
The Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe has requested that President Biden use the authority conferred to him by the Antiquities Act to designate a new national monument encompassing more than 390,000 acres of public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management in Imperial County.
We support the tribe’s efforts to protect this incredible place, which is their ancestral homeland and part of a larger cultural landscape that includes the proposed Chuckwalla National Monument (California) and Spirit Mountain in the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument (Nevada).
In August, Environment California Research & Policy Center teamed up with organizers from CALPIRG Students and Green Corps to support the monument proposal by running a week-long public education and engagement campaign in Imperial County. Our team of 10 organizers braved the 100+ degree heat in the desert and hit the streets and the malls in the towns of Imperial, El Centro and Brawley and the classrooms of Imperial Valley College to have one-on-one conversations with residents about the monument and opportunities for them to get involved in the campaign.
Nearly everyone we talked to in Imperial County was supportive of the proposed monument designation and the results of our outreach clearly demonstrate the community support. Organizers collected 500 petitions and got 116 photos of supporters holding pro-Kw’tsan signs. Ninety-five local business owners and two professors signed on to support the proposed monument and 40 of them put up posters in their businesses.