The Highland Range is just one of the many amazing landscapes
in the proposed Avi Kwa Ame National Monument. Credit: Alan O'Neil
By Christian Gerlach, Sierra Club's Our Wild America Organizer
The Sierra Club's Toiyabe Chapter and Southern Nevada Group's wonderful volunteer network, in tandem with the National Our Wild America/Lands Water Wildlife Campaign organizing staff, and a broad coalition of other amazing environmental and community organizations, are rapidly mobilizing local support and elevating the voices of the Fort Mojave Tribe calling for the designation of the proposed Avi Kwa Ame National Monument. Over the past few months, community-based organizations like Get Outdoors Nevada, Conservation Lands Foundation, Institute For a Progressive Nevada, Friends of Walking Box Ranch, Nevada Native Voters Alliance, the Las Vegas Indian Center, The Fifth Sun Project, National Parks Conservation Association, and the Nevada Conservation League have hosted and participated in several community events collecting thousands of petition signatures in support of the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument.
The Sierra Club's dedicated volunteers and staff have collected several hundred petition signatures over the past few months at recent events like the Indigenous Market Place and Festival at The Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort, The Friends of Nevada Wilderness Wild and Scenic Film Festival, and Clark County’s Indigenous Peoples Day at the Winchester Community Center. The Sierra Club and it's wonderful volunteers also got to steward the historic Walking Box Ranch for National Public Lands Day, a spectacular part of Nevada's history that would be further protected by the designation of the proposed Avi Kwa Ame National Monument working with the Friends of Walking Box Ranch and the Southern Nevada District office of the Nevada Bureau of Land Management.
These events have helped the Sierra Club's staff and volunteers reinvigorate our connections with long time friends and allies in Las Vegas’ local Native American Community and with many of the members of the Las Vegas Band of Paiutes. The Las Vegas Band of Paiutes governing council and other Southern Paiute Bands are key constituencies whose traditional cultural property and living culture are a part of the proposed Avi Kwa Ame National Monument landscape in addition to several other Federally Recognized Native American Nations.
The coalition of organizations has many more events planned and we hope all of you that identify as Sierra Club volunteers and supporters will help us with joining an outing, or upcoming petition gathering and tabling opportunity. We plan on hosting several events over the next few months as we call on President Joe Biden and Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to permanently protect Avi Kwa Ame. We will also be at your local DMV locations collecting petition signatures.
If you have not yet already signed our petition to protect Avi Kwa Ame, please do so now.
Donate to support our work to protect amazing landscapes across Nevada and the Eastern Sierra. All donations stay local.