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Last week, members of the Yocha Dehe and Kletsel Dehe Tribes signed a historic co-stewardship agreement with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) at an event celebrating the recent expansion of California's Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument. “We are profoundly grateful for this commitment to protect Tribal cultural resources and the environment,” Yocha Dehe Tribal Chairman Anthony Roberts said.
Last October, Senator Alex Padilla and Representatives Mike Thompson and John Garamendi sent a letter to President Joe Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland urging the Biden-Harris administration to use its authority under the Antiquities Act to expand the monument and support co-stewardship opportunities going forward. On May 2nd, President Biden signed a presidential proclamation to add more than 13,000 acres of federal public land to the monument to safeguard generations of Tribal origin stories and protect wildlife corridors and rich biodiversity in the region, as well as rename the “Walker Ridge” parcel to “Molok Luyuk.”
“Molok Luyuk has been stewarded for thousands of years by the Wintun Nations,” BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning said at the ceremony. “This co-stewardship agreement will strengthen the management of this portion of Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument for generations to come, enhancing our ability to protect natural and cultural resources and to educate visitors to the monument.”
To see pictures and learn more about the Molok Luyuk area and the people behind the effort to protect it, check out the Center for Western Priorities' Road to 30: Postcards blog post.
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We’re setting a new standard of cooperative stewardship and embarking on a new era of public land management that gives Tribes a seat at the table. With the historic signing of these co-stewardship agreements, local Tribes will be able to more formally contribute their deep, personal knowledge of the history and ecology of the area to better protect and celebrate this land.”
