New California Law Means Clearer Path for Tribes to Co-Manage Lands and Waters

A barrage of natural disasters in California this year—from the nearly 430,000-acre Park fire and other wildfires, flooding from severe rainstorms known as atmospheric rivers, and extreme heat persisting for months in several regions—has claimed human lives and devastated communities and large areas of nature alike. Affected areas include urban centers, rural communities, undeveloped landscapes, and ancestral Tribal lands.

Many of these events have been exacerbated by climate change and have compounded existing threats to the state’s world-class diversity of flora, fish, and wildlife, as well as to drinking water sources and productive lands.

To counter those threats and limit destruction from future disasters, many entities—including Tribal Nations and California’s natural resource agencies—must work collaboratively.

And fortunately, state policymakers are taking their cue: On September 27,  Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Assembly Bill 1284, which supports cooperation on natural resources stewardship by clarifying and encouraging co-management agreements between Tribal Nations and the state. Authored by Assembly Member James Ramos, the first Native American to be elected to the State Assembly, the bill passed unanimously in both chambers of the California Legislature.

“The success of AB 1284 … is a victory for all tribal nations in California,” said Jeri Lynn Thompson, chairperson of the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation, one of the bill’s biggest supporters,  said in a news release issued by Ramos’ office. “It paves the way for more equitable partnerships with the state in managing our natural resources.”

The Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation, along with the Pulikla Tribe of Yurok People, and three other Tribes—the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, the Kashia Band of Pomo Indians, and the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians—are active members of the Tribal Marine Stewards Network, a collaboration that supports cultural practice, land and water stewardship, and education. Earlier this year, the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation and Pulikla Tribe of Yurok People joined with the Cher-Ae Heights Indian Community of the Trinidad Rancheria to designate the Yurok-Tolowa-Dee-ni’ Indigenous Marine Stewardship Area off the northwest California coast, the first such protection enacted by Tribal governments in the United States.

More than 100 federally recognized Tribes and hundreds of Tribal communities in California have sustained the region’s lands, waters, and wildlife over thousands of years through Indigenous knowledge and cultural practices. In recognition, Gov. Newsom issued an executive order in October 2020 directing the California Natural Resources Agency to collaborate with Tribal partners to incorporate Tribal expertise and traditional ecological knowledge into its work, in an effort to better understand biodiversity threats.

As a result, strengthening Tribal partnerships is one of three core commitments of California’s 30 by 30 initiative, an effort to conserve 30% of the state’s lands and waters by 2030. The state’s official “Pathways to 30x30” report recognizes that “Tribes have a sovereign right to their traditional foods, which necessitates accessing and utilizing traditional food sources and expanding tribal access, management, and restoration to enable continuation and revitalization of tribes’ cultural lifeways, foods, and ecosystems.”

The mutual agreements encouraged by the new law can now foster strong partnerships between Tribal Nations and the state, increasing the likelihood that Tribes and the state will share decision-making and that culturally specific practices—including managing resources for food, medicine, ceremonies, and other customary uses—can continue. The timing of the law is opportune because it may provide a clearer pathway for the state to work with Tribal Nations that designated the Yurok-Tolowa-Dee-ni’ Indigenous Marine Stewardship Area.

“AB 1284 will create a clear path for true co-governance and co-management,” Fawn Murphy, chairperson of the Pulikla Tribe of Yurok People, another major supporter of the bill, said in the release issued by Ramos’ office. “California’s federally recognized tribes have the knowledge and expertise to co-manage lands and waters in their ancestral territories. Now more than ever, we need tribal co-management if we are going to help the state reach its 30x30 goals and combat a changing climate.”

Jos Hill is a project director and Bobby Hayden is an officer with The Pew Charitable Trusts’ U.S. conservation project.