Provide public officials, the National Parks Conservation Association, and Nevada Conservation League with a birds-eye look at the proposed Avi Kwa Ame National Monument. Further our conservation partners efforts to protect this sacred and ecologically essential area by advocating for a National Monument designation.

The proposed Avi Kwa Ame (Mojave name for Spirit Mountain) National Monument contains some of the most visually stunning, biologically diverse, and culturally significant lands in the entire Mojave Desert. Monument designation would protect an essential corridor that connects the Mojave National Preserve, Castle Mountains, and Mojave Trails National Monuments. The designation would also connect Dead Mountain Wilderness Area in California with Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada, and the Colorado Plateau. This will 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. Further, this designation would encourage recreational experiences and opportunities for the public to engage in the natural world. This designation would protect and create more opportunity for hiking, backpacking, wildlife viewing, scenic driving, hunting, horseback riding, as well as opportunities for solitude and dark night skies in the region.

As important as this area is ecologically, it is equally significant as a cultural landscape. This entire area is considered sacred by the nine Yuman speaking tribes as well as the Hopi and Chemehuevi Paiute. For the Yuman tribes, the area is empirically tied to their creation, cosmology, and well-being. Spirit Mountain, called Avi Kwa Ame by the Mojave Tribe, is located on the eastern boundary of the proposed Monument. It is designated a Traditional Cultural Property on the National Register of Historic Places in recognition of its religious and cultural importance.