CNN
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President Joe Bill will declare two new national monuments in California on Tuesday. This will be one of his final legacy-enhancing actions to protect American lands and waters before he leaves the White House to President-elect Donald Trump.

Biden will build Chuckwalla National Monument in Southern California near Joshua Tree National Park and Sáttítla National Monument in Northern California near the Oregon border.

As president, Biden created or expanded 12 national monuments and restored three others. Combined with the actions he took Monday to ban offshore oil drilling in 625 million acres of ocean, Biden has federally protected 674 million acres, or 1,053,125 square miles – a land and ocean area nearly four times larger Texas, the second largest area in the country. largest state.

Chuckwalla National Monument in Southern California will cover approximately 644,000 acres on the southern border of Joshua Tree and extend to the Colorado River in Southern California. By designating the new monument, Biden will have created the largest corridor of protected land in the continental U.S., stretching about 600 miles from southeastern Utah to Southern California, according to the White House.

“The breathtaking canyons and winding trails of Chuckwalla National Monument represent a true, unparalleled beauty,” said Interior Sec. Deb Haaland said in a statement. “I am so grateful that future generations will have the opportunity to experience what makes this area so unique.”

Sáttítla National Monument in Northern California will encompass more than 220,000 acres of the Medicine Lake Highlands, will be located near Mount Shasta and will preserve an important watershed and native plants of the region.

The memorial will include the massive and dormant Medicine Lake volcano, and the highland landscape is dotted with remnants of past eruptions – including lava tubes and volcanic craters.

Both monument areas are sacred to several Native American tribes, who have actively advocated for the administration to protect the land from energy extraction. According to the Interior Department, the designation will ban drilling and fossil fuel mining and the area is deemed unsuitable for solar energy development.

Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, said the designations for both areas were “another major victory for protecting California’s public lands for generations to come,” noting that nearly 1 million acres of public lands have been preserved in the state.

Chuckwalla, which takes its name from the species of chuckwalla lizard that lives there, is part of the ancient and sacred lands of the Fort Yuma Quechan tribe. The Quechan hold the sacred Avi Kwa Ame, also known as Ghost Mountain, which Biden declared a national monument in 2022 – saying it was the origin of their ancestors who then wandered the Chuckwalla Desert.

“The essence of who we are lies in the landscapes of Chuckwalla and Avi Kwa Ame,” the Fort Yuma Quechan Tribe said in a statement. “Every path, every creature and every story in these places is connected to a rich history and heritage that is embedded in our DNA.”

President-elect Donald Trump has reduced the size of two national monuments in Utah in his first term and signed a congressional public lands bill authorizing five new national monuments.