Following a multiyear campaign backed by tribal nations, conservationists and local governments in Southern Nevada, President Joe Biden used his executive authority on Tuesday to establish a new national monument encompassing roughly 500,000 acres across Southern Nevada. 

The national monument spans a biodiverse desert ecosystem but centers around Avi Kwa Ame, or “Spirit Mountain,” a sacred and significant landscape for Indigenous communities across the Southwest. In remarks at a conservation summit in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, the president called the landscape “a place of reverence. It’s a place of spirituality. It’s a place of healing.”

“And now it will be recognized for the significance it holds and be preserved forever,” he said.

In a roughly 6,000-word proclamation, Biden designated the land under his authority using the Antiquities Act, a 1906 law that allows the president to protect land for its cultural and natural resources. On Tuesday, the president also designated a monument outside of El Paso, Texas.