Avi Kwa Ame National Monument
Avi Kwa Ame National Monument protects about 506,000 acres of the Mojave Desert in southern Nevada. It was established on March 21, 2023, by President Joe Biden under the Antiquities Act. The name comes from Spirit Mountain, also known as Avi Kwa Ame, a sacred site for the Yuman tribes that is visible from much of the monument.
Most of the land is managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) as part of the National Conservation Lands, with a portion inside Lake Mead National Recreation Area managed by the National Park Service. The monument includes parts of the Newberry, Eldorado, New York, McCullough mountains, and Dead Mountains, as well as much of the Piute Valley and Eldorado Valley. It surrounds the towns of Searchlight, Palm Gardens, and Cal-Nev-Ari, Nevada, while some small areas are excluded.
Key features include Spirit Mountain itself, along with the South McCullough, Wee Thump Joshua Tree, Nellis Wash, Bridge Canyon wilderness areas, and a portion of Ireteba Peaks Wilderness. The monument borders Lake Mead NRA and other protected areas, creating a large, contiguous Mojave Desert landscape.
The area is home to important wildlife such as desert bighorn sheep, desert tortoise, and golden eagles, and the western part provides habitat for the Joshua Tree. The Mojave Desert there hosts more than 200 plant species. The site also contains culturally important places, like petroglyphs at Hiko Springs and Grapevine Canyon, and the Mojave Road passes through the area. About 330,000 acres were already protected since 1996 as the Piute/Eldorado Area of Critical Environmental Concern to safeguard the desert tortoise.
The Fort Mojave Indian Tribe has long advocated for protecting the region. Spirit Mountain was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. Local residents opposed a proposed wind farm, which helped spur the push for national monument designation starting in 2020. The Clark County Commission supported the designation, and discussions in Congress followed in 2022. In late 2022, President Biden pledged to protect the area, and the monument was officially proclaimed in March 2023 at a White House event with tribal leaders.
The final monument is slightly larger than the initial proposal, including three wilderness areas already within Lake Mead NRA. It is managed by the BLM and the National Park Service and is not a single Park Service unit. Some small lands are owned by the Bureau of Reclamation and will be transferred to the BLM. An advisory committee, with a majority of Tribal Nations members, will oversee the monument and involve Indigenous communities in co-stewardship.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 06:03 (CET).