California has launched a new policy aimed at placing at least 7.5 million acres of state lands and coastal waters under the stewardship of Indigenous tribes. The initiative, announced in March, seeks to address historical harms and foster a new era of partnership between the state and Native American tribes.
"When nature thrives, we all thrive," California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot stated. "This policy confronts the harms perpetrated by our government that disrupted tribal relationships to the land. In institutionalizing tribal stewardship with our agency, we begin a new era of partnership with tribes."
The Tribal Stewardship Policy establishes three primary pathways for achieving this goal. Two involve collaboration, where decision-making authority over land management is shared with tribes or entirely delegated to them. The third, described as the most "robust" by the policy, is the direct return of land to tribal ownership. The state agency has committed to identifying the least burdensome and most flexible legal mechanisms to facilitate these returns.
This policy follows several recent instances of land being returned to tribes. In June, the California Transportation Commission approved the transfer of Blues Beach in Mendocino County to the Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians, Round Valley Indian Tribes, and Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians. In February, the Washoe Tribe purchased 10,000-acre Loyalton Ranch from the city of Santa Clara with the assistance of a $5.5 million state wildlife conservation grant.
Last year, the Hoopa Valley Tribe acquired a 10,395-acre property in Hupa Mountain from a forest management company. Funding for this purchase included contributions from the California Natural Resources Agency's $101 million Tribal Nature Based Solutions Grant Program and the California State Coastal Conservancy. Similarly, the Tule River Indian Tribe received financial aid to purchase two ranches totaling 17,030 acres in the Yowlumne Hills, intended for wildlife restoration.
Governor Gavin Newsom has highlighted these land returns as a means of rectifying past injustices. "The historical wrongs committed by the state against the Native people of this land echo through the natural worlds of California—ecosystems that lost their first and best stewards," Newsom said previously.
While the policy provides a broad framework, it does not specify particular lands for return or the exact division between direct ownership and shared management. The California Natural Resources Agency has indicated it is seeking ways to implement the policy's objectives.