On February 12, 2016—five several years in the past today—fellow left-hander Barack Obama picked up his pen and produced three new nationwide monuments and secured 1.8 million acres of land that belong to you and me. Individuals 3 monuments are Castle Mountains, Mojave Trails, and Sand to Snow, and throughout Southern California, as best they can in these covid times, people are celebrating the anniversary.

Mojave Trails is the premier of the a few. Spanning 1.6 million acres, additional than 350,000 acres of formerly congressionally-specified Wilderness, MTNM is comprised of a mosaic of rugged mountain ranges, ancient lava flows, and stunning sand dunes. It shields Native American trading routes, Environment War II-period schooling camps, and the longest remaining undeveloped extend of Route 66. Castle Mountains is just 20,920 acres, but it is a crucial wildlife connection among two mountain ranges, preserving drinking water assets, vegetation, and critters these as golden eagles, bighorn sheep, mountain lions, and bobcats. Sand to Snow is 154,000 acres, which include just about 100,000 acres of Wilderness, and it encompasses SoCal’s tallest peak (sure, there’s bc snowboarding right here) and a full ton additional.

The monuments survived the four a long time of Sauron’s administration devoid of reduction, luckily, but threats remain, which include groundwater pumping, advancement encroachment, climate change and far more. The fight for conservation under no circumstances ends.