Redwood forest in northern California reclaimed by Native American tribes
National Park Service Ranger Jeff Denny shows one of the eighteen cuts made on a thousand-year-old Redwood tree outside of Orick, California June 3, 2014. Recent poaching for redwood burls in the Redwood National Park and Northern California State Parks forced officials to close the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway, a ten mile drive through the old growth Redwood forest, after sunset, according to the National Park Service. | PHOTO: REUTERS/Nick Adams
A native tribal group has reclaimed a redwood forest in Northern California, with a San Francisco conservation group transferring more than 500 acres (202 hectares) to a council that represents tribal nations with historical ties to the area.
Conservation group Save the Redwoods League said on Tuesday it purchased the 523-acre property, formerly known as Andersonia West, in July 2020 and has now donated and transferred ownership of the forest to InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council.
“The Sinkyone Council resumes guardianship of a land from which Sinkyone people were forcibly removed by European American settlers generations ago”, the conservation group said in the statement.
Last year, U.S. federal officials met with Native American tribes to gather recommendations as the federal government sought to move ahead with efforts to protect and restore tribal homelands.
The group of 10 tribes that have inhabited the area on the Lost Coast in Mendocino County for thousands of years will be responsible for protecting the land to be renamed as “Tc’ih-Léh-Dûñ,” meaning “Fish Run Place” in the Sinkyone language.
“Renaming the property Tc’ih-Léh-Dûñ lets people know that it’s a sacred place; it’s a place for our Native people,” said Crista Ray, a tribal citizen of the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians and a board member of the Sinkyone Council. “It lets them know that there was a language and that there was a people who lived there long before now.”
Priscilla Hunter, chairwoman of the Sinkyone Council, said it was fitting they will be caretakers of the land where tribal people were forced to flee before the forest was stripped for timber.
Save the Redwoods League’s initial purchase of the forest for $3.55 million in 2020 was funded by Pacific Gas & Electric Company, also known as PG&E.
The utility company has been criticized for destroying many trees in California to reduce chances of vegetation contacting power lines and sparking forest fires.
PG&E said it had also provided $1.13 million in 2021 to fund a perpetual stewardship endowment and to reimburse Save the Redwoods League for staff time spent on collaboration in developing the conservation project.
