Biden is creating a new national monument near the Grand Canyon (npr.org)

President Biden is designating a new national monument near the Grand Canyon on Tuesday. The move protects lands that are sacred to indigenous peoples and permanently bans new uranium mining claims in the area. It covers nearly 1 million acres.

The president will give remarks at the Historic Red Butte Airfield in Arizona at 11 a.m. local time before visiting the Grand Canyon.

Tuesday's announcement is part of a trip that will include New Mexico and Utah, where Biden is expected to make the case for how he's tackling the climate and economic challenges facing Americans in the West.

Still, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American Cabinet secretary, called Biden's move "historic."

"It will help protect lands that many tribes referred to as their eternal home, a place of healing and a source of spiritual sustenance," she said. "It will help ensure that indigenous peoples can continue to use these areas for religious ceremonies, hunting and gathering of plants, medicines and other materials, including some found nowhere else on earth. It will protect objects of historic and scientific importance for the benefit of tribes, the public and for future generations."

Haaland called her own trip to the area in May "one of the most meaningful trips of my life."

The new national monument will be called Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument. According to the Grand Canyon Tribal Coalition that drafted a proposal for the monument, "Baaj Nwaavjo" means "where tribes roam" in Havasupai, and "I'tah Kukveni" translates to "our ancestral footprints" in Hopi.