WASHINGTON - The San Jacinto and Santa Rosa mountains - as well as millions more acres of national monuments - could gain extra funding through a new conservation foundation.

Actor Edward Norton, a big supporter of environmental causes, is joining former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who last week announced the creation of the National Conservation System Foundation to raise awareness and funding to protect these lands.

"Many of these special places are not protected in national parks or wildlife refuges," Norton says in a Web video featuring footage of unspoiled Western vistas. "Today, these national treasures face growing threats and could be damaged forever by development, vandalism and neglect."

Those problems are expected to grow as more people move out West, causing lands that were once isolated to fall victim to vandalism, artifact theft and off-road vehicles that trample plants and other wildlife habitats.

Among areas joining the valley's mountains are the rugged plateaus and cliffs of the Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah and the islands, rocks and exposed reefs that hug California's coast.

Former President Bill Clinton designated the lands as conservation areas during his last term in office. But they have not received the attention or funding they deserve, said Babbitt, who helped Clinton create the current conservation system of lands.

"We can wind up destroying the values that brought us here in the first place," Babbitt said.

In 2000, Rep. Mary Bono, R-Palm Springs, won designation of the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto mountains as national monuments. Bono, a member of a congressional conservation caucus, says more funding is needed to protect the mountains, which are just footsteps from her home.

Last week, she joined Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, who has a house in Rancho Mirage, in introducing legislation that would expand the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument and designate nearly 200,000 acres of pristine and ecologically sensitive lands in Riverside County for conservation.

The lands protected under the bill provide habitat for threatened bighorn sheep, the desert tortoise and bald eagles.

"If these things ever vanish," Bono said, "they're gone for good."

New conservation funding

Norton, best known for his role in the movie "Fight Club" with Brad Pitt, and Babbitt announced last week the creation of the National Conservation System Foundation to raise awareness and funding to protect these lands.

The foundation's board includes former Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus; Stewart Udall, secretary of the Interior under President Johnson; and Dayton Duncan, an award-winning writer and documentary filmmaker.

Board members say they hope to create a network of local groups that will mount an aggressive campaign to protect the lands and join with others to raise conservation funds.

The new foundation comes as lawmakers in Washington are pushing to officially designate these lands for conservation, similar to the status given to national parks and wildlife refuges. That recognition would ensure a more constant source of funding that could provide more law enforcement and resources for visitors.

"These are living landscapes," foundation spokeswoman Betsy Buffington said.

President Bush has asked Congress to set aside $49.2 million for the conservation system, about $3 million less than the amount he requested last year.

Coachella Valley advocates, meanwhile, continue efforts to buy up remaining parcels of land within the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa mountains monument that are still owned by private interests to ward off development.

Buford Crites, a former Palm Desert mayor, has long been involved with Friends of the Desert Mountains, which buys monument lands for conservation.

"The mountains form the visual scenic backdrop to our valley," he said, noting that the landscape changes dramatically from the valley to the top of the mountains, resembling a "vertical journey from the desert of Baja all the way to British Columbia."