FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, June 14, 2024
CONTACT: Emily Thompson, Em************@pr********.org, 202-758-3936
The Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks Stands in Support of Designating Chuckwalla National Monument on the Heels of DOI Community Meeting
INDIO, CA — At a community meeting today hosted by the Department of the Interior, attendees called on President Biden to designate a new Chuckwalla National Monument and protect an area adjacent to Joshua Tree National Park.
Phil Francis, Chair of the Executive Council of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, issued the following statement in support:
“We thank the Department of Interior for hosting a community meeting at Chuckwalla.
Designating Chuckwalla as a national monument would protect approximately 627,000 acres reaching west from the Coachella Valley region to the east near the Colorado River and help ensure equitable access to nature for residents of the eastern Coachella Valley and other local communities.
We also strongly support the additional protection of land adjacent to Joshua Tree National Park. The proposed monument would preserve this cultural landscape by providing protections for important values tied to the land such as multi-use trail systems established by Indigenous peoples, sacred sites and objects, traditional cultural places, geoglyphs, petroglyphs, pictographs, plants, and wildlife.
We call on President Biden to use the Antiquities Act to designate the Chuckwalla National Monument in the California Desert and protect lands adjacent to Joshua Tree National Park as part of his pledge to protect 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.”
The Coalition previously joined a statement of support for the designation of the Chuckwalla National Monument and the expansion of Joshua Tree National Park.
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The Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks represents over 2,700 current, former, and retired employees and volunteers of the National Park Service, with over 45,000 collective years of stewardship of America’s most precious natural and cultural resources. Recognized as the Voices of Experience, the Coalition educates, speaks, and acts for the preservation and protection of the National Park System and mission-related programs of the National Park Service. More information can be found at https://protectnps.org