Biden will affix his signature and ultimately preserve 848,000 acres of lands in California cited for their scientific, cultural, ecological and historical importance and surrounded by canyon walls in the Eastern Coachella Valley.

It was announced earlier this month that Biden would act on the proposal. However, the original proclamation date got switched from last Tuesday due to ongoing wildfires inundating California.

“We were waiting for President Biden to announce 2 new national monuments in Coachella Valley, but bad weather delayed the announcement today,” California State Treasurer Fiona Ma posted Wednesday on Bluesky.

Meanwhile, the outgoing Biden administration has preserved over the last four years at least 674 million acres of U.S. land and water — more than any other president in U.S. history, including noted environmentalist Theodore Roosevelt.

This “historic announcement,” said Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., will accelerate California’s “crucial efforts to fight the climate crisis, protect our iconic wildlife, preserve sacred tribal sites, and promote clean energy while expanding equitable access to nature for millions of Californians,” Padilla wrote in a statement.

According to officials, Southern California’s Chuckwalla National Monument will be Biden’s “capstone action” that will create the “largest corridor of protected lands” in the continental United States to cover a nearly 600 mile stretch and 18 million acres — referred to as the Moab to Mojave Conservation Corridor — once its established.

Further, it will protect and preserve more than 624,000 acres of land in southern California that hold “extraordinarily diverse ecological, cultural, and historical value,” officials say.

The area includes a wide-range of natural and cultural resources and the Colorado River, across the Colorado Plateau into the California deserts.

However, both monuments only will reserve federal lands and not state or private property.

Northern California’s Sáttítla Highlands National Monument — to be managed by the U.S. Forest Service under the federal Department of Agriculture — will cover more than 224,000 acres of area to include parts of the Modoc, Shasta-Trinity and Klamath National Forests.

This follows a series of other official monument designations by the outgoing Democratic president in recent weeks, including establishment of the Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument in Carlisle, Penn., and the Frances Perkins National Monument in Newcastle, Maine last month in December.