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In southern Nevada, the Fort Mojave Tribe is leading the effort to protect a new 380,000 national monument, Avi Kwa Ame. The proposed monument would encompass Spirit Mountain, which is sacred to tribal members, and protect some of the most biologically diverse land in the Mojave Desert.
The latest short film in the Center for Western Priorities' Road to 30: Postcards multimedia series takes us to Avi Kwa Ame, where Fort Mojave members Paul Jackson, Jr. and Nora McDowell explain why the area is so important.
“It's like a giant medicine cabinet—we used everything,” Jackson says. “To most people when they come here, that's all they see is dead, you know, useless plants, a desert. But to us, it wasn't. We made a life out here. That's why we were able to survive.”
Avi Kwa Ame is threatened by development and ongoing vandalism, which is why the Fort Mojave Tribe is asking President Biden to use the Antiquities Act to protect it as a national monument. Watch the film to see and hear more from Avi Kwa Ame, and listen to this episode of The Landscape podcast to go inside the Road to 30 project and learn about more landscapes that can help America reach the goal of protecting 30 percent of its land and waters by 2030.
The Uinta basin is hemorrhaging methane
New research from the University of Utah finds that the Uinta Basin is among the worst places in the country when it comes to methane pollution. The Salt Lake Tribune's Brian Maffly reports that as much as 8% of the region's natural gas production escapes into the atmosphere, a massive waste of publicly-owned resources that also accelerates climate change.
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Our elders have been looking at ways they can protect this place since the early establishment of our government back in 1956. This particular area here, Grapevine Canyon, we have thousands of petroglyphs on the cliffs and the walls here that were put here by our people, our ancestors. There's people that come here and try to chisel off portions of the rock writing that exist out in this area.”
