A chuckwalla lizard basks in this 2007 archive photo from Amboy Crater National Natural Landmark in Southern California. The lizard gives its name to the new Chuckwalla National Monument.

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David McNew/Getty Images

President Biden is building two new national monuments in California on Tuesday to protect the land from development and set a record for the most land and waters ever preserved by a president, the White House said.

The Sáttítla Highlands National Monument covers more than 224,000 acres in Northern California and includes the ancestral homelands of the Pit River Tribe and the Modoc People. It has a dormant volcano at its center and is home to the longest known lava tube system in the world.

Spanning more than 624,000 acres south of Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California, Chuckwalla National Monument includes sacred sites important to five groups of indigenous peoples and 50 rare plant and animal species, including the Chuckwalla lizard.

The Chuckwalla Monument is part of a corridor of protected lands stretching about 600 miles west across a total of nearly 18 million acres in California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah that the White House calls the “Moab to Mojave Conservation Corridor.”

In total, Biden has protected 674 million acres of land and water through monuments and other protected areas during his four years in office, the White House said.