Nearly 900 acres of land bordering Yosemite National Park have been transferred back to tribal ownership after 175 years,
The transfer from Pacific Forest Trust to the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation provides the tribe with ownership of the naturally and culturally significant Henness Ridge, site of a traditional Native American trail from the Central Valley to Yosemite, and a key migration corridor for deer and other mammals.
“This transfer reunites our people to this unique area of our homeland after 175 years of displacement,” said Tara Fouch-Moore, Tribal Secretary.
The Pacific Forest Trust spent two decades preparing the land for its return to tribal ownership after the organization purchased it under threat of development.
Located just west of Chinquapin/Badger Pass and State Highway 41, the property overlooks both branches of the Wild and Scenic Merced River to the south and north, the Central Valley to the west, and the main Yosemite Valley to the north.
For generations, the Southern Sierra Miwuk people cared for these forests, meadows, and springs. But with the 19th-century increase in settlements and the establishment of the Yosemite National Park, the tribe was eventually expelled.
“Having this significant piece of our ancestral Yosemite land back will bring our community together to celebrate tradition and provide a healing place for our children and grandchildren,” said Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation’s Tribal Council Chair and elder Sandra Chapman, in a statement. “It will be a sanctuary for our people.”
The transfer will enable the Southern Miwuk to restore biodiversity and climate resilience using traditional ecological practices such as cultural fire, cultivation of native plants, forest restoration, and protection of water quality feeding the two tributaries of the Merced.
In 2018, the property was heavily impacted by the Ferguson Fire. With a significant portion of the property burned, Pacific Forest Trust restored almost 500 acres by removing dangerous snags, thinning overstocked areas, improving access and other conditions for reforestation, and planting 125,000 native seedlings.
In fact, the Ferguson Fire was stopped from further spread on this Ridge, protecting the community of Yosemite West.
The project will also facilitate movement across private-public corridors for plants and animals adapting to climate change, and provide a unique platform for public education on the multiple benefits of indigenous land stewardship.
“When we were first approached to conserve this land over 20 years ago, we recognized immediately how important it was to protect and conserve. As we’ve protected it from development, strengthened its role as a buffer to Yosemite, and prioritized both conservation and cultural restoration, this is an extraordinarily fitting and positive outcome!” said Laurie Wayburn, cofounder and president of Pacific Forest Trust.
In addition to re-establishing the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation as the stewards of Henness Ridge, this project will support and strengthen the Tribe’s case for federal recognition, an ongoing pursuit since 1982.
The land transfer was facilitated by a grant from the California Natural Resources Agency Tribal Nature-Based Solutions Program, which GNN recently reported helped set up another reunion a century and more in the making when the Tule River Indian Tribe celebrated the return of 17,000 acres of ancestral lands by releasing several of the region’s native Tule elk to roam the hills of the southwest Sierra Nevada.
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Much like the Henness Ridge and its adjacency to Yosemite, the 17,00 acres are made up of former ranch properties that connect the Tule River Tribe’s existing reservation with a large block of US Forest Service land that connects with Giant Sequoia National Monument in Sequoia National Forest.
By turning the land, known as the Yowlumne Hills, over to the tribe, a substantial conservation corridor for animals including these Tule elk will be established.
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As for the Miwuk, they look forward for rebuilding their identity landowners and stewards
“We will be able to harvest and cultivate our traditional foods, fibers, and medicines and steward the land using traditional ecological knowledge, strengthening our relationships with plants and wildlife, and benefiting everyone by restoring a more resilient and abundant landscape,” Fouch-Moore said in a statement.
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