Introduction to the proposed Chuckwalla National Monument

The Protect California Desert coalition is working to protect wildlife, honor indigenous homelands, and ensure equitable access to public lands east of the Coachella Valley, extending almost to the Colorado River and into Imperial County through the designation of Chuckwalla National Monument and the expansion of Joshua Tree National Park.

You may already be familiar with the proposal, but if not you can visit our coalition website, read about it in our local newspaper, or join us at an upcoming virtual open house on June 13th at 6pm.

I'm setting up this project not only to highlight the unique biodiversity of this part of the California Desert, but to help make the case that many of the plants and animals within the proposed Monument boundary are truly unique and worthy of protection. I've been working on this proposal for almost two years now, and a big chunk of that time has been spent coordinating the technical reports required for National Monument designation detailing the history, cultural significance, hydrology, climate, and ecology of these lands.

Please join this project, and if you are comfortable doing so, trust the project with your hidden coordinates. Many of the plants and animals within the proposed Chuckwalla National Monument are threatened, endangered, or rare enough to be automatically obscured by iNaturalist, but knowing the true coordinates is really important for our purposes. This project is administered by team members at CactusToCloud Institute, and we take the security of sensitive biological data seriously. If you trust us with your hidden coordinates, we'll treat that data under the same guidelines as the CNDDB

Thank you for submitting observations from the area! I hope you found the desert as amazing a place as we do. I'm happy to answer questions or discuss the proposal further with you through iNat messages, via email at colin@cactustocloud.org, or out on the trail.

Note that the proposed Chuckwalla National Monument boundary, and any iNat places based on that boundary, are in draft form and are subject to change based on scientific, historical, and cultural values and/or feedback from the community.

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Posted on June 8, 2023 07:09 PM by cwbarrows