Mission

To continue advocacy for the protection of Sáttítla Highlands National Monument in the face of overwhelming public lands threats, we provided Senator Dahle's staffers, along with the Guardian, and conservation partners, an aerial tour of the newly designated National Monument.

On January 14, 2025, President Biden designated Sáttítla (also known as the Medicine Lake Highlands) as a national monument, honoring the Pit River Tribe’s decades-long effort to protect their ancestral homelands. We flew over this breathtaking 200-square-mile landscape to witness the extraordinary values that make it so deserving of protection. The region’s beauty and ecological richness are striking—deep blue lakes nestled among ancient volcanic ridges, blending into wetlands and old-growth forests that support thriving wildlife populations. This land has sustained the Pit River Tribe since time immemorial and remains vital to their spiritual and cultural traditions.

Now permanently protected, the Sáttítla Highlands National Monument safeguards one of California’s most important hydrological resources: the Medicine Lake caldera, a vast underground reservoir that stores as much water as the state’s 200 largest aboveground reservoirs combined. This water feeds the Fall River Springs—one of the largest spring systems in the West—and supports both world-class trout fisheries and downstream agriculture. Monument designation ensures that the region’s public lands, wildlife habitat, and critical watersheds are shielded from destructive industrial geothermal development and preserved for future generations.

Thank you to our partners for supporting the protection of this sacred landscape. EcoFlight will continue to fly in defense of public lands and tribal homelands, and in celebration of this hard-earned victory for conservation and cultural sovereignty.

Click for photos from the flights, GoPro footage, and geo-referenced flight photos.