This is an excerpt from an article FSC Board Member Alan O’Neill wrote with Searchlight resident Judy Bundorf in Sierra Club’s Desert Report newsletter. Learn more and sign the petition to create Avi Kwa Ame National Monument at honorspiritmountain.org.
In Southern Nevada, we have the opportunity to protect some of the most visually stunning, ecologically diverse, and culturally significant public lands in the entire Mojave Desert. Stretching from the Newberry Mountains in the east to the New York, South McCullough, Castle, and Piute Mountains in the west, these lands feature a cacophony of plant and animal diversity, dramatic peaks, scenic canyons, and natural springs. It includes sloping bajadas covered with ancient Joshua tree forests, unique grasslands, and a rich history of rock art and other cultural sites. It is also an area designated by Audubon as an Important Bird Area.
A coalition of tribes, conservation groups, recreation interests, and others is working to establish the Avi Kwa Ame (Spirit Mountain) National Monument to permanently protect these unique lands. Avi Kwa Ame is the Mojave name for Spirit Mountain. Lying partly in the proposed monument and partly within Lake Mead National Recreation Area, it is designated as a Traditional Cultural Property on the National Register of Historic Places.
Energy developers recently tried to build two large wind farms in the heart of this dramatic landscape, and new proposals may come at any time. Such development would forever scar these valuable lands and degrade their world-class habitat and their nationally recognized cultural resources.
The roughly 380,000 acre National Monument would protect an expanse of relatively intact East Mojave Desert ecosystem in Nevada that provides continuity to the other parts of the East Mojave Desert already protected on the California side. The Monument would create an essential corridor to connect the Mojave National Preserve, the Castle Mountains National Monument, the Mojave Trails National Monument, and the Dead Mountain Wilderness Area in California, along with the Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada. The proposed Monument would serve as a contiguous block of habitat of sufficient quality and quantity to promote the survival, growth, reproduction, and maintenance of viable populations of Mojave Desert flora and fauna. It has also been proposed that the Secretary of the Interior manage the monument through the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) as a unit of the National Landscape Conservation System.
The monument boundary was developed using both an ecological overlay and a cultural overlay. For the ecological overlay, the Nature Conservancy’s Mojave Desert Ecological Assessment was used as it provides a scientifically sound basis for determining where the highest overall ecological values intersect. The Monument will focus on lands that support a broad range of rare and common species, as well as areas that remain relatively undisturbed. Maintaining the integrity of the larger landscape, both within the Monument itself and in connections to adjacent protected areas, will be critical for long-term survival of the ecosystem. The topographic diversity in the area encompasses a wide variety of niches and microhabitats that allow current resident species to survive in an otherwise harsh desert landscape.
Because most of the land within the proposed boundary is relatively undisturbed and connects to other protected lands, the Monument offers the opportunity to provide species and communities the space and interconnectedness they may need to adapt to climate change. Maintaining landscape integrity across the elevational gradient and the transition zones increases the ecosystem’s resilience to long-term environmental changes − such as changing temperatures and precipitation levels.
The cultural overlay was developed working with the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe, that serve as the steward of Avi Kwa Ame (Spirit Mountain) and the sur-rounding cultural landscapes on behalf of the Yuman speaking tribes which include the Mohave, Hualapai, Yavapai, Havasupai, Quechan, Maricopa, Pai, and Kumeyaay. The Mojave Indian Tribe is coordinating with the other affiliated tribes for input.
Avi Kwa Ame is the center of the Yuman tribes’ creation, and it figures predominately within their spiritual ideology. The Yuman tribes believe the mountain is their spiritual birthplace, the place where ancient ancestors emerged into this world. According to the Mojave Tribe, the area within the proposed monument is physically and spiritually connected to the viewshed and landscapes that surround Avi Kwa Ame. The network of trails and cultural sites and the corresponding creation stories link their tribe and religious traditions to this important landscape. Today, the mountain and surrounding landscape continue to serve as a sacred and ceremonial place for the Yuman tribes. The landscape is also important to the Hopi and Chemehuevi Paiute.
In addition to the ecological and cultural landscapes values, the area is also known for its outstanding vistas and for its dark night skies and natural quiet, resources that are becoming more important over time.
A Monument designation provides the most flexibility to both protect the ecological and cultural values while maintaining the rural character of the area and protecting existing recreational uses of the land such as hunting, hiking, OHV use, and backcountry driving on existing designated roads and trails, and camping.
Learn more and sign the petition to create Avi Kwa Ame National Monument at honorspiritmountain.org.