Latest news with #triballands
The Independent
5 days ago
- General
- The Independent
California's Yurok Tribe gets back ancestral lands that were taken over 120 years ago
As a youngster, Barry McCovey Jr. would sneak through metal gates and hide from security guards just to catch a steelhead trout in Blue Creek amid northwestern California redwoods. Since time immemorial, his ancestors from the Yurok Tribe had fished, hunted and gathered in this watershed flanked by coastal forests. But for more than 100 years, these lands were owned and managed by timber companies, severing the tribe's access to its homelands. When McCovey started working as a fisheries technician, the company would let him go there to do his job. 'Snorkeling Blue Creek ... I felt the significance of that place to myself and to our people, and I knew then that we had to do whatever we could to try and get that back,' McCovey said. After a 23-year effort and $56 million, that became reality. Roughly 73 square miles (189 square kilometers) of homelands have been returned to the Yurok, more than doubling the tribe's land holdings, according to a deal announced Thursday. Completion of the land-back conservation deal along the lower Klamath River — a partnership with Western Rivers Conservancy and other environmental groups — is being called the largest in California history. The Yurok Tribe had 90% of its territory taken during the California Gold Rush in the mid-1800s, suffering massacres and disease from settlers. 'To go from when I was a kid and 20 years ago even, from being afraid to go out there to having it be back in tribal hands … is incredible,' said McCovey, director of the Yurok Tribal Fisheries Department. ___ EDITOR'S NOTE: This is part of a series of on how tribes and Indigenous communities are coping with and combating climate change. ___ Land Back is a global movement seeking the return of homelands to Indigenous people through ownership or co-stewardship. In the last decade, nearly 4,700 square miles (12,173 square kilometers) were returned to tribes in 15 states through a federal program. Organizations are aiding similar efforts. There's mounting recognition that Indigenous people's traditional knowledge is critical to addressing climate change. Studies found the healthiest, most biodiverse and resilient forests are on protected native lands where Indigenous people remained stewards. Beth Rose Middleton Manning, a University of California, Davis professor of Native American Studies, said Indigenous people's perspective — living in relation with the lands, waterways and wildlife — is becoming widely recognized, and is a stark contrast to Western views. ' Management of a forest to grow conifers for sale is very different from thinking about the ecosystem and the different plants and animals and people as part of it and how we all play a role," she said. The Yurok people will now manage these lands and waterways. The tribe's plans include reintroducing fire as a forest management tool, clearing lands for prairie restoration, removing invasive species and planting trees while providing work for some of the tribe's more than 5,000 members and helping restore salmon and wildlife. Protecting a salmon sanctuary One fall morning in heavy fog, a motorboat roared down the turbid Klamath toward Blue Creek — the crown jewel of these lands — past towering redwoods, and cottonwoods, willows, alders. Suddenly, gray gave way to blue sky, where an osprey and bald eagle soared. Along a bank, a black bear scrambled over rocks. The place is home to imperiled marbled murrelets, northern spotted owls and Humboldt martens, as well as elk, deer and mountain lions. The Klamath River basin supports fish — steelhead, coho and Chinook salmon — that live in both fresh and saltwater. The Klamath was once the West Coast's third largest salmon-producing river and the life force of Indigenous people. But the state's salmon stock has plummeted so dramatically — in part from dams and diversions — that fishing was banned for the third consecutive year. 'We can't have commercial fishing because populations are so low,' said Tiana Williams-Claussen, director of the Yurok Tribe Wildlife Department. 'Our people would use the revenue to feed their families; now there's less than one salmon per Yurok Tribe member." Experts say restoring Blue Creek complements the successful, decades-long fight by tribes to remove the Klamath dams — the largest dam removal in U.S. history. This watershed is a cold-water lifeline in the lower Klamath for spawning salmon and steelhead that stop to cool down before swimming upstream. That's key amid climate-infused droughts and warming waters. 'For the major river to have its most critical and cold-water tributary … just doing its job is critical to the entire ecosystem,' said Sue Doroff, co-founder and former president of Western Rivers Conservancy. Altered lands, waterways For more than 100 years, these lands were owned and managed for industrial timber. Patchworks of 15 to 20 acres (6.07 to 8.09 hectares) at a time of redwoods and Douglas firs have been clear cut to produce and sell logs domestically, according to Galen Schuler, a vice president at Green Diamond Resource Company, the previous land owner. Schuler said the forests have been sustainably managed, with no more than 2% cut annually, and that old growth is spared. He said they are 'maybe on the third round' of clear cutting since the 1850s. But clear cutting creates sediment that winds up in streams, making them shallower, more prone to warming and worsening water quality, according to Josh Kling, conservation director for the conservancy. Sediment, including from roads, can also smother salmon eggs and kill small fish. Culverts, common on Western logging roads, have also been an issue here. Most "were undersized relative to what a fish needs for passage,' Kling said. Land management decisions for commercial timber have also created some dense forests of small trees, making them wildfire prone and water thirsty, according to Williams-Claussen. 'I know a lot of people would look at the forested hillsides around here and be like, 'It's beautiful, it's forested.' But see that old growth on the hill, like way up there?' asked Sarah Beesley, fisheries biologist for the Yurok Tribe, sitting on a rock in Blue Creek. 'There's like one or two of those." Fire bans, invasive plants and encroachment of unmanaged native species have contributed to loss of prairies, historically home to abundant elk and deer herds and where the Yurok gathered plants for cultural and medicinal uses. Western Rivers Conservancy bought and conveyed land to the tribe in phases. The $56 million for the conservation deal came from private capital, low interest loans, tax credits, public grants and carbon credit sales that will continue to support restoration. Restoration plans The tribe aims to restore historic prairies by removing invasive species and encroaching native vegetation. The prairies are important food sources for elk and the mardon skipper butterfly, said Kling from the conservancy. Trees removed from prairies will be used as logjams for creeks to create habitat for frogs, fish and turtles. The tribe will reintroduce fire to aid in prairie restoration and reestablish forest diversity and mature forests to help imperiled species bounce back. Members know its going to take decades of work for these lands and waterways to heal. 'And maybe all that's not going to be done in my lifetime,' said McCovey, the fisheries director. 'But that's fine, because I'm not doing doing this for myself.' ___ The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP's environmental coverage, visit
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Yahoo
North Dakota tribal national park to open Badlands to visitors
Jack Dura Associated Press BISMARCK, N.D. — A new tribal national park in North Dakota's rugged Badlands is opening a little-seen area of the dramatic landscape to hikers and other outdoors enthusiasts, part of a Native American tribe's efforts to preserve the land and encourage recreation. The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation established Three Affiliated Tribes National Park with the purchase of 2,100 acres (850 hectares) of a former ranch adjacent to the Fort Berthold Reservation's boundaries on the south side of the Little Missouri River. The area was in the tribe's original treaty lands but a government allotment act later reduced the reservation's size, said Mary Fredericks, director of the tribe's Parks and Reserve Program. The reservation's boundaries have expanded to include the park. Tribal Chairman Mark Fox said the goal is to establish a park for cultural and recreational purposes such as canoeing, kayaking and viewing wildlife. 'It's part of our history, our lands, very significant to us, the whole area,' Fox said. 'This is just another strong move to reacquire some of our lands and then do something very effective with it, so to speak' to aid tourism and the economy through recreation. Park officials are being careful with how they plan and develop the park to be thoughtful about impacts on the landscape. 'This place will be here in perpetuity and it will be better when we are done than it was when we got it, and that's what we're pushing for, that's where we're headed,' Park Superintendent Ethan White Calfe said. North Dakota's Badlands — the name denotes the difficult terrain — comprise a stark, erosive, colorful landscape with dramatic shapes, petrified wood and ancient fossils. The area draws hikers, campers, hunters, bicyclists and other outdoors enthusiasts. The park, which held a soft opening in September, is open only to foot traffic by a free permit online. Park officials require visitors to register their plans and hikers must park at a grass lot. By the end of the summer, organizers hope to have 10 miles (16 kilometers) of trails finished, Fredericks said. Plans to build a visitor center and campground are in the works. Park officials also intend to work on native prairie and soil restoration in the erosive environment where some native plants that thrive in the area have been pushed out by invasive species, White Calfe said. 'We're looking at it as how do we help this area look like it did 300 years ago? How do we help this area heal to where it is in a lot of more of a state of equilibrium,' White Calfe said. It's a beautiful and picturesque but deceptive and steep landscape, Fredericks said. The park is bisected by a state highway that drops from a flat into a rugged river bottom. People can see parts of the park while driving, but not its interior, she said. Eventually, the park could be a gateway for visitors to the reservation, Fredericks said. Outdoor recreation is available at Lake Sakakawea, which straddles the vast reservation, and nearby at Theodore Roosevelt National Park and the Maah Daah Hey Trail. The MHA Nation benefits from oil development on its reservation, which helped the tribe to afford the land for the park, Fredericks said. 'But in that we have to be careful and preserve and conserve,' she said. 'I'm very, very proud of our tribal council for having the foresight to buy this land with the intent of making it into a national park ... because we don't know what's going to happen 50 years from now and what our landscape is going to look like, but we can preserve this part of it.' The park neighbors Little Missouri State Park, which draws horseback riders to its 40 miles (64 kilometers) of trails in the Badlands. The rugged landscape 'kind of has that almost spiritual feel to it. It's peaceful,' state Parks and Recreation Department Director Cody Schulz said. State park officials have worked with the tribe for about two years on its plans and partnering together, such as connecting trail systems, Schulz said. Tribal park officials are collaborating with anyone willing, Fredericks said. White Calfe said the park is an opportunity 'to tell our own story, our own narrative from our own perspective in a place like this. That's pretty valuable.'
