Declaring it good “not only for Arizona but for the planet,” President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed a national monument designation for the greater Grand Canyon, turning the decades-long visions of Native American tribes and environmentalists into reality.

The move will help preserve about 4,046 sq. km. just to the north and south of Grand Canyon National Park. It encompasses canyons, plateaus and tributaries that feed a range of plants and wildlife, including bison, elk, desert bighorn sheep and rare species of cactus, and it is Biden’s fifth monument designation.

Notably, the designation will also limit mining in the region.

Tribes in Arizona have been pushing the president to use his authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to create a new national monument called Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni. “Baaj Nwaavjo” means “where tribes roam,” for the Havasupai people, while “I’tah Kukveni” translates to “our footprints,” for the Hopi tribe.

“Preserving these lands is good, not only for Arizona but for the planet,” said Biden, who spoke with a mountain vista behind him using a handheld mic to counter the wind and wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses to shield him from the sunshine. “It’s good for the economy. It’s good for the soul of the nation.”

The president tied the designation to his administration’s larger push to combat climate change and noted this summer’s extreme heat, which has been especially punishing in places like Phoenix. He said extreme heat was responsible for more deaths than other natural disasters like floods and hurricanes but added, “None of this need be inevitable.”

Biden spoke near Red Butte, a site culturally significant to the Havasupai and Hopi tribes, to an audience that included a number of people in traditional native dress, including feathered headbands.

The president said the new designation would see the federal government live up to its treaty obligations with Native American tribes after many were forced in decades past from their ancestral homes around the Grand Canyon as officials developed the site of the national park.

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said that “the Grand Canyon is known as one of the seven natural wonders of the world, but we know it for so much more.”

“There’s no national treasure, none, that is grander than the Grand Canyon,” the president added.