These are the plants and animals that will benefit from the designation of largest corridor of federally protected land
Vast forests, desert land and even a volcano are among the landscapes included in what is now the largest corridor of protected land in the United States -- which will also protect numerous rare and threatened plant and animal species that live within the region.
The Biden administration announced on Tuesday the designation of two new monuments, which will establish the largest tract of protected land in the continental U.S.
President Joe Biden used his authority under the Antiquities Act to protect nearly 850,000 acres from the drilling of fossil fuels and mining, according to the departments of Interior and Agriculture. The new monuments will help protect clean water for communities, honor areas of cultural significance to Indigenous nations and enhance access to nature, according to the White House.
"Public and private land conservation is often forgotten as an essential tool in advancing economic, social and environmental prosperity, and, when done properly, can create long-lasting benefits for generations," John Farner, executive director of land and water at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, said in a statement to ABC News. "As the federal government continues to address how land is used and managed, conservation, through proper planning, can and should continue to be considered as a key component of land use for years to come."
While Biden's proclamation is not unique for a departing president, the scale of the designation is, Stan Meiburg, executive director of Wake Forest University's Sabin Family Center for Environment and Sustainability, told ABC News. Biden is "taking advantage" of land that is already owned by the federal government and adding extra protections, Meiburg added.
"This clearly reflects the importance of environmental and resource protection in how President Biden views his personal legacy," Meiburg said.
These monuments will play a vital role in saving hundreds of plants and animals, many of them unique to these landscapes, like the iconic Joshua Tree, desert bighorn sheep and pronghorn antelope, Rodd Kelsey, director of land conservation for the Nature Conservancy, told ABC News in a statement.
In 2017, then-President Donald Trump issued an executive order targeting protections for large landscapes made by past presidents under the Antiquities Act.
The new monuments of protected land will expand a corridor farther west, according to the White House.
These are the historic landscapes now under federal protection and the species that will benefit:
Chuckwalla National Monument in Southern California
Southern California is home to hundreds of thousands of acres now federally protected under a new national monument designated by Biden, who is expected to sign the proclamation on Tuesday while surrounded by the canyon walls of the Eastern Coachella Valley, according to the White House.
The Chuckwalla National Monument, situated south of Joshua Tree National Park, will protect 624,000 acres of land that includes a wide range of natural and cultural resources along the Colorado River, across the Colorado Plateau and into the deserts of California.
The new monument also creates the new Moab to Mojave Conservation Corridor -- nearly 18 million acres of protected land spanning from Southern California to Utah -- the largest protected corridor in the continental U.S., according to the White House.
The corridor stretches from Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southwestern Utah to the Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument in Arizona and the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in Nevada.
The Chuckwalla National Monument will enhance the connectivity of wildlife habitats and preserve critical habitats for imperiled and rare species. Fifty rare plant and animal species are native to the region, including the desert bighorn sheep and the Chuckwalla lizard.
The monument will also safeguard clean water for more than 40 million people by protecting the Colorado River region, and it will provide outdoor recreation opportunities for historically underserved communities in the Coachella Valley.
In addition, the Chuckwalla will ensure the ancestral homelands and sacred cultural legacies of the region's tribal nations, including the Cahuilla, Chemehuevi, Mojave, Quechan and Serrano nations.
The monument boundary includes sacred sites, ancient trails, historic properties, cultural areas, religious sites, petroglyphs, geoglyphs and pictographs, according to the White House.
"These particular sites in [Southern] California are important to Native American groups," Meiburg said, adding that some of the locations were being assessed for renewable energy production, which would involve the installation of infrastructure like transmission lines.
The monument will be managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management.
The Chuckwalla National Monument will be critical for saving the iconic and unique Joshua Tree, which is declining rapidly in the face of development and a warming climate, Kelsey said.
Sáttítla Highlands National Monument in Northern California's mountainous interior
About 224,000 acres of land in Northern California will now be protected under the designation of the Sáttítla Highlands National Monument.
The new monument will include parts of the Modoc, Shasta-Trinity and Klamath National forests, according to the White House.
The dormant Medicine Lake Volcano, which has an expanse that measures 10 times larger than Washington's Mount Saint Helens, is also included in the monument. Along with the volcano are geologic features unique to the region, including cinder cones, volcanic craters, spatter cones and hundreds of cave-like lava tubes.
The landscape surrounding the volcano is a contrast between unvegetated lava fields interspersed with islands of relict forest communities, and lush forests, according to the White House.
Rare and vulnerable species native to the region include the Cascades frog, the long-toed salamander, the northern spotted owl and the sugarstick, a parasitic plant associated with the roots of old-growth conifers.
The Sáttítla Highlands include the ancestral and sacred lands of the Pit River Tribe and Modoc Peoples. Other Indigenous groups that hold deep connections and cultural value to the region include the Karuk, Klamath, Shasta, Siletz, Wintu and Yana, according to the White House.
The monument will be managed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's U.S. Forest Service.
The Sáttítla National Monument protects some of the most important cold-water systems in California that are vital for protecting world-class trout streams and saving salmon in the Klamath ecosystem, Kelsey said.
"This is a major step forward toward California achieving the goal of protecting 30% of its lands and waters by 2030," he said.
ABC News' Fritz Farrow contributed to this report.
