President Joe Biden on Tuesday officially designated a new national monument in Southern Nevada while speaking at a conservation event at the Interior Department.

At more than 506,000 acres, the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument is one of the largest tracts of land to come under federal protection so far during Biden’s presidency, preserving Nevada’s Spirit Mountain and the desert around it.

“It’s a place of reverence, a place of spirituality, a place of healing,” Biden said Tuesday. “It will now be recognized for the significance it holds and be preserved forever.”

Biden’s proclamation is a major victory for the surrounding Fort Mojave Indian Tribe, which has been advocating for the monument’s creation for around three decades.

“Avi Kwa Ame is the point of Mojave creation; it’s a very important and integral part of our history and belief system,” Ashley Hemmers, the tribal administrator for Fort Mojave, told CNN. “For us, that mountain is a living landscape; it’s like a person. If something were to happen to it, it would be like losing a loved one.”