President Barack Obama designated three national monuments in Southern California on February 12, 2016, which placed nearly 1.8 million acres of federal land under national monument protection. The three sites were Mojave Trails, Sand to Snow and Castle Mountains, which are a group of desert landscapes that also connected several areas that were already protected as national parks, preserves and wilderness. The U.S. Department of the Interior said the designations followed decades of local input and conservation efforts.
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