A redwood forest in California has been returned to a Native American group for conservation.
More than 202 hectares are added to the 1,618.7 hectares that the group protects for cultural and environmental purposes.
Descendants of North Coast California Indian tribes are reclaiming some of their heritage, including ancient redwoods that have existed since their ancestors walked the earth. The Redwoods League transfers more than 202 acres on the Lost Coast to the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council.
Ten tribes that have inhabited the area for thousands of years will protect the land, called Tc’ih-Léh-Dûñ, or “Place of the Fish Race” in the Sinkyone language.
Priscilla Hunter, president of the Sinkyone Council, said it was appropriate that they were the stewards of the land where their people were displaced or forced to flee before the forest was mostly stripped of timber.
“It’s a real blessing,” said Hunter of the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians. “It’s like a cure for our ancestors. I know our ancestors are happy. This was given to us to protect him.”
The transfer marks a step in the growing land-back movement to return Indigenous lands to the ancestors of those who lived there for millennia before European settlers arrived.
The league first worked with Sinkyone’s council when it transferred a nearby 66-acre property to the group in 2012.
The league recently paid $37 million to a logging company for a 5-mile scenic stretch of the rugged and imposing Lost Coast, protecting it from logging and eventually opening it to the public.
Opening access to the public isn’t a priority if ownership is transferred to the tribal group because it’s remote, said Sam Hodder, the league’s president and CEO. But it serves as an essential piece of the puzzle between other protected areas.
The steep hills meander up and down to a tributary of the Eel River, home to rainbow trout and Coho salmon. The property was last logged about 30 years ago and still has many mature redwoods and second growth trees.
“This is a quality that you can almost tangibly feel healing and recovering,” Hodder said. “You walk through the forest, and while you see the spooky stumps of ancient trees that have been harvested, you can also see in the misty landscape the monsters left behind and the young sequoias sprouting from those stumps. .”
The league bought the land two years ago for $3.5 million, funded by Pacific Gas & Electric Co., to provide habitat for the endangered northern spotted owl and groundhog and to mitigate other environmental damage caused by the company. Public service.
PG&E will be released Tuesday from five years of probation after an explosion triggered through its natural gas pipelines in 2010 that blew up a San Bruno neighborhood and killed eight people. It has been accused of starting more than 30 wildfires since 2017, which have burned down more than 23,000 homes and businesses and killed more than 100 people.
To reduce its liability and the potential for vegetation to contact power lines and start fires, PG&E has been criticized for destroying many large, mature trees.
“Thank you to the Save the Redwoods League for taking every opportunity to protect lands on the Lost Coast that are critical to its conservation,” said Michael Evenson, vice president of the Lost Coast League, which works to protect the water and wildlife in the region. “But for PG&E after all the destruction they’re causing, to get a green badge of merit… that’s not palatable.”
Hawk Rosales, former executive director of the council, said the new property adds a significant proportion to the 4,000 acres (1,618.7 hectares) that the group protects for cultural and environmental purposes.
More importantly, it restores the tribal group’s role in tending the land.
“For so many decades, tribal voices have been marginalized in the mainstream conservation movement,” Rosales said. “Only recently have they been invited to meaningfully participate and take a leadership role.”
Hodder said the league is trying to remove some barriers to expanding land farmed by tribal communities and bringing back indigenous knowledge and practices like mandatory burning that led to healthier forests.
“These communities have governed this land for thousands of years,” Hodder said. “It was the exclusion of this government in many ways that got us into this mess.”