This week, representatives of the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe and the Pit River Nation used the 16th United Nations Conference on Biological Diversity, or CBD, in Cali, Columbia to champion the creation of the Kw’tsán National Monument, the Chuckwalla National Monument, and the Sáttítla National Monument. The proposed move would protect around 1 million acres in California from extractive industries like mining, oil, and gas. With the U.S. presidential election less than two weeks away, California tribes are pushing the Biden administration to designate these three national monuments before a new, possibly unfriendly or uninterested administration, takes office.

Lena Ortega of the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe in the southern tip of California said that in the proposed Kw’tsán National Monument, animals like bighorn sheep and desert tortoises live amongst the Ocotillo, a cane-like semi-succulent, as well as sandfood, a fleshy parasitic plant that grows nowhere else.

“The motto for this year is ‘Peace With Nature,’” she said of the CBD meeting. “Well, we’ve always had peace with nature. We are one with the land and one cannot be separated from the other and still be healthy.”

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