"For 15 years, we’ve built a powerful archive of ocean conservation efforts, shared hundreds of videos, and raised awareness for marine life. Now, our YouTube channel has been taken offline, erasing years of crucial work. We’re starting from scratch, but we won’t be silenced."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCvqQMzSf20

#Siletz Celebrate Historic #LandBack Deal

Tribe’s focus will be #restoration, #preservation and #cultural uses like #FirstFoods for the 2,000-acre site at the base of #TableRocks in Southern #Oregon.

by Nika Bartoo-Smith, Underscore + ICT January 17, 2025

"The property was purchased directly from the previous landowner. The #NatureConservancy preserves a #ConservationEasement on the land. The Siletz will continue to work closely with The Nature Conservancy and the BLM across the properties in the region to emphasize conservation and restoration.

Expanding access to first foods

"Moving forward, the tribe’s goal is to create opportunities for Siletz tribal members to access the historically significant land while safeguarding its character. The nation plans to work on preservation and restoration, focusing on protecting the natural area rather than developing it.

“'There will be big opportunities for restoration and enhancement of the food plants themselves,' [Robert] Kentta said. '[And] also enhancing tribal members’ access to use of and reconnection with those resources that we’ve been separated from.'

"Kentta mentioned some important first foods of the region that he hopes will become a focus at the property, including #camas, #tarweed and #yampah root. The land will also be used for other cultural purposes.

"Chairman Pigsley spoke of her hope that future generations of Siletz people will be able to go up to the rocks, hearing important stories and learning about the plant and animal relatives all around."

Read more:
https://www.underscore.news/land/siletz-celebrate-historic-land-back-deal/
#SolarPunkSunday #Rewilding #Restoring #Nature #NativeAmericanNews #RogueRiverTribe #ConferatedTribesOfSiletz

How Returning Lands to Native Tribes Is Helping Protect Nature

From California to Maine, land is being given back to #NativeAmerican tribes who are committing to managing it for conservation. Some tribes are using #TraditionalKnowledge, from how to support #wildlife to the use of prescribed fires, to protect their ancestral grounds.

By Jim Robbins • June 3, 2021

"Now the [Salish and Kootenai] tribes are managing the range’s #bison and are also helping, through co-management, to manage bison that leave #YellowstoneNationalPark to graze on U.S. Forest Service land. Their Native American management approach is steeped in the close, almost familial, relationship with the animal that once provided food, clothes, shelter — virtually everything their people needed.

"'We treat the buffalo with less stress, and handle them with more respect,' said Tom McDonald, Fish and Wildlife Division Manager for the tribes and a tribal member. The tribes, he noted, recognize the importance of bison family groups and have allowed them to stay together. “That was a paradigm shift from what we call the ranching rodeo type mentality here, where they were storming the buffalo and stampeding animals. It was really kind of a violent, stressful affair.'

"In #California, a land trust recently transferred 1,199 acres of #redwood forest and prairie to the #EsselenTribe.

"There is a burgeoning movement these days to repatriate some culturally and ecologically important lands back to their former owners, the Indigenous people and local communities who once lived there, and to otherwise accommodate their perspective and participation in the management of the land and its wildlife and plants.

"Throughout the United States, land has been or is being transferred to tribes or is being co-managed with their help. In California, a land trust recently transferred 1,199 acres of redwood forest and prairie to the Esselen tribe, and in Maine, the Five Tribes of the #WabanakiConfederacy recently reacquired a 150-acre island with the help of land trusts. Other recent land transfers to tribes with the goal of conservation have taken place in #Oregon, #NewYork and other states.

"The use of Indigenous management styles that evolved over many centuries of cultures immersed in nature — formally called Traditional Ecological Knowledge (#TEK) — is increasingly seen by conservationists as synergistic with the global campaign to protect #biodiversity and to manage nature in a way that hedges against #ClimateChange.

"The #NatureConservancy, for example, one of the world’s largest conservation organizations, has institutionalized the transfer of ecologically important land with its Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities Program in both the U.S. and globally."

Read more:
https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-returning-lands-to-native-tribes-is-helping-protect-nature

The #NatureConservancy of #Canada says a new #conservation area north of #Cranbrook #BritishColumbia will protect important #BirdHabitat & preserve #grasslands in the province's southeast.

The #conservancy says money from #GovernmentOfCanada & private donors went to buying up 271 hectares of land in the #Skookumchuk #Prairie in the province's southeast corner.

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/nature-conservancy-of-canada-buys-b-c-grasslands-for-new-conservation-area-1.6903343