Meet Avi Kwa Ame: Nevada's Newest Proposed National Monument

Friends of Nevada Wilderness invites you to our July Wild Speaker Series. Our presenter will be Alan O’Neill, retired Lake Mead Superintendent and Advisor to the National Parks Conservation Association. Alan will talk about an effort by a coalition of tribes, conservation groups, recreation interests, and others to establish the Avi Kwa Ame (Spirit Mountain) National Monument in South Clark County. The Monument would protect some of the most visually stunning, ecologically diverse and culturally significant public lands in the entire Mojave Desert. Stretching from the Newberry Mountains in the east to the New York, South McCullough, Castle, and Piute Mountains in the west, these lands feature a cacophony of plant and animal diversity, dramatic peaks, scenic canyons, and natural springs. It includes sloping bajadas covered with ancient Joshua tree forests, unique grasslands, and a rich history of rock art and other cultural sites.

The roughly 380,000-acre National Monument would protect an expanse of relatively intact East Mojave Desert ecosystem in Nevada that provides continuity to the other parts of the East Mojave Desert ecosystem already protected on the California side. The Monument creates an essential corridor that connects the Mojave National Preserve, Castle Mountains National Monument, Mojave Trails National Monument and Dead Mountain Wilderness Area in California, along with the Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada. The proposed Monument will serve as a contiguous landscape of habitat with sufficient quality and quantity to promote the survival, growth, reproduction, and maintenance of viable populations of Mojave Desert flora and fauna.

We will see you there!