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TOM WHEELER:

Welcome to the Econews Report. I'm your host this week, Tom Wheeler, Executive Director of EPIC, the Environmental Protection Information Center. And we are going to be talking about this kind of exciting moment that we have in conservation, where we have the marrying together of tribal justice through LandBack and environmental conservation through LandBack.

So joining me to discuss this wonderful marriage is Molli Myers. Molli is the President of the Klamath Indigenous Land Trust and is the Co-Founder and COO of Ridges to Riffles. And we are also joined by our friend, Alex Loomer. Alex is a lobbyist for the Karuk Tribe and is also on the EPIC Board of Directors. A

ll right, so there is a piece of legislation that inspired today's conversation, and that is AB 53, a bill introduced by Assemblymember Ramos. Maybe let's go into what AB 53 would do. Molli or Alex, do you want to give the elevator pitch speech for AB 53?

ALEX LOOMER:

I can give the high level kind of overview. So the bill currently does two things. It opens up two different programs within the Resources Agency to funding being extended to federally recognized tribes. This would be the Inland Wetlands Conservation Program and the Central Valley Habitat Joint Venture. These are for purposes of wetland and upland habitat restoration. They previously have not been available for federally recognized tribes. This will now make them eligible. And it would also allow for the Resources Agency to enter into land management contracts for department managed lands with federally recognized tribes. Again, previously they were not eligible to do this. This will now open up that eligibility.

And I'll note that non-federally recognized tribes through going into a nonprofit entity have already been eligible. So a lot of them have been able to participate in these programs and federally recognized tribes would also like to join the party and get to help. So the third piece of the bill is aimed at trying to get land for conservation purposes transferred to federally recognized tribes. They can continue to manage and protect these lands for conservation purposes. That section of the bill was removed in the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee. And there's a broad coalition of tribes and environmental and conservation organizations right now urging the state Senate to put that piece of the bill back in and clarifying that existing law allows federally recognized tribes to accept pre-existing legal obligations like conservation easements and other protections on the land when they accept these lands. But we just need to make sure that that language is clarified in the bill.

So that's an ongoing conversation in the Senate right now.

WHEELER:

I feel like AB 53 surprised me, in that this has drawn considerable opposition from both what I would call conservative and liberal camps to maybe overly simplified, but we have conservative supervisors from rural counties together with white liberals from urban areas who have expressed concern about this bill. Alex, I know that EPIC is in support of this bill and you are working in Sacramento to try to get it passed, but if you could, can you try to give an explanation of where this concern's coming from? Because it seems strange to me, especially from the white liberal enviros that if a tribe wants to do conservation work, wants to have land back for conservation purposes, why would someone be opposed?

LOOMER:

Yeah, I mean, great question. And it surprised me as well. I'll just read a quote from their letter of concern, but basically said that they were concerned about transferring these lands could create an unintended loophole that could gate previously applicable protections, grant requirements, contractual obligations, and state oversight. And they believe the state should not be relieved of its role as a public trustee over its natural resources. I find this a little ironic, considering how these lands were acquired in the first place, you had tribes stewarding this land doing a great job. And then the US government came in and through state-sanctioned genocide wiped out good portions of the population that was doing a great job steering this land, and then made a bunch of promises that they then broke.

And so now we're fast forward a couple hundred years later, and we're saying, Oh, gosh, like, we really think the state needs to play a role here and have oversight. We're worried that if it goes back to the tribes that they might not be carrying over these protections. And I personally, not speaking for the for the tribe here, but personally just think that's a little offensive, because we have so many examples of where tribes have done way better than the feds or even the state at stewarding lands. And there was recently actually a scientifically published journal article out of the University of British Columbia, that did a study of comparing lands stewarded by tribes versus by the government and consistently tribes do a better job. Like this isn't like something that I'm just like, guessing, this has actually been studied and proven, and shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that's that's been paying attention.

WHEELER:

And let's bring Molli here. So Molli, you've spent your entire career working on behalf of both tribal justice and environmental stewardship. And I think that this probably is central to you and central to your tribe. Can you talk about how this reception has felt to you as someone who has proven that tribes and tribal members are good stewards of our environment?

MOLLI MYERS:

Yeah, so just to clarify, I don't, I also don't represent the Karuk Tribe. I am, however, a Karuk tribal citizen. And so this bill is sponsored by the Karuk tribe and I'm proud of them for bringing this forward. So I think when I just, I've actually just been learning more about AB 53 and one of the things I was doing research and I was reading those opposition letters and I didn't get very far through the first one I was reading before I ran into this paragraph that was like, we recognize the genocide, but we still don't think these Indians are gonna be able to steward these lands as well as say a white conservation group. I myself personally, Ridges to Riffles and the Klamath Indigenous Land Trust I think could both be considered conservation groups. And I beg to differ. Like I don't think that, I think that what AB 53 is doing is helping us to normalize indigenous stewardship as a conservation strategy.

And so when I was reading through those opposition letters I have to say I did get pretty offended by the sort of antiquated ideas that are still held in place from this divide and conquer time and the time of genocide for the native people in California. Those are the same ideas that are being regurgitated in these opposition letters. I was pretty surprised by that I have to say, but honestly, I'm not surprised by that. The fact is, is that AB 53 I think can help us change the landscape of California and help us move towards or move back towards that indigenous stewardship that really is what I believe is going to fix the world. We're gonna fix the world that has to involve indigenous stewardship.

WHEELER:

So Fix the World, this is a very important concept for your tribe and for other North Coast tribes. As I understand, it's the center of the spiritual being of indigenous communities here on the North Coast. Can you talk a little bit more about what it means to be a Fix the World tribe?

MYERS:

Yeah, so as Karuk people, I can just speak for myself as a Karuk person, is we have always called ourselves Fix the World people. Our ceremonies, literally, our Fix the World ceremonies, our World Renewal ceremonies, our Pikyávish, which is to fix it. Pikyávish is to fix it. And so we know, and it's been passed down to us through generations since time immemorial, that it is our responsibility as Karuk people to create balance in the world. And we all know that our world is out of balance right now.

And so I think that when we're thinking about tribes and tribes stewarding things, and whether or not we're capable of that, or that we can have the same sort of conservation ideals as like a non-Native entity, you have to look at the fact that this is us since time immemorial. We have been Fix the World people. We have generational knowledge, and that has got to be recognized by all the entities if we are going to use that knowledge to create the balance that we know needs to exist in the world for the world to continue on. So that Fix the World is not just a slogan for us. It does run very deep.

WHEELER:

And if we look at a track record of who should be trusted and who should be supported when it comes to these sorts of matters, I think the scoreboard is decidedly on tribes' favor here.

So if we look at recent efforts, we have things like Klamath River Dam removal. That was a tribally-led movement that is one of the biggest river restoration projects on this planet. And that was led from folks who have lived on the Klamath River since time immemorial. We also have other efforts like restoration of condors, prey-go-neesh. Another terribly inspiring conservation action where, again, here the Yurok tribe, as a tribal government, spearheaded this work and has brought back condors to the North Coast of California.

And we can go further back in time, right? Which is when white settlers came to the North Coast of California and they found fish aplenty and found this, what seemed like a verdant, beautiful landscape that was a product of indigenous land management practices, indigenous fisheries management practices. So this idea that like, oh, the tribes are untrustworthy in some facet is a strange one.

MYERS:

Yeah, I thought it was, I thought it was really interesting. I just actually learned this about these organ, these, the inland wetland and the other, the other funding source is that it's actually available to nonprofits. So tribes can manage, they can put in for this, but they have to have a fiscal sponsor or they have to create a nonprofit, which is like just ridiculous, such a ridiculous notion to me, because that is the method that tribes have been using, but we should not have to have a fiscal sponsor to let manage our own land.

WHEELER:

Alex, I imagine you have something to add here.

LOOMER:

Yeah, I mean, I think just going back to how some of the concerns that were raised by opposition, they want a public process. They're worried that this isn't going to bring in the voices of county supervisors. This was raised in a letter from a supervisor from Del Norte County. They haven't complained about this with any other transactions with land trusts. These lands currently are able to go to nonprofit land trusts and other nonprofit entities. There's never been this huge pushback. And suddenly now, when federally recognized tribes are being brought to the table, it's like, oh gosh, you know, well, these lands were purchased with bond dollars that our conservation organizations put money in front, put money to support, and we want to be sure that there's a public process and comment period. This would go through, if this language passed, federally recognized tribes would be brought in just like every other stakeholder that's currently eligible. And there should not be this higher bar set for the land to go back to its original owners. It just seems ridiculous.

But I do appreciate some of these groups saying the quiet part out loud, because I think that's how you have the real conversations. And folks in the Senate are able to actually see where these groups stand and what they actually believe in. So try and see the silver lining here. At least there's

WHEELER:

The quiet part out loud, something that I've been told from some folks who I would have thought knew better was, how can we trust that land back isn't just a way for tribes to get more land to then build a casino on? Which I mean, if a casino is part of their economic development, let them have self-determination there. But it always struck me as strange that this was like the first thing that people went to in their brains, that the tribes were untrustworthy because of their association with casinos.

LOOMER:

Yeah, Molli might have something to add.

MYERS:

I feel like this, there's a couple of points here. One is like, I understand that, and that is a reaction that we get a lot, is like, well, a tribe's just, they're gonna get it and they're just gonna wanna build a casino. Well, it turns out like we actually hold sacred our land in a lot of ways that is never going to be understood by the general public. And then there's this idea, like that idea that we would just build it, that a casino can just go anywhere and that's not gonna be a problem or an issue, or we don't, like we're not able to determine on our own what is a reasonable place for something like that and what's not.

We also have to, I wish that like, when white people built things or non-natives built things, like it doesn't go through the same thought process. And you know, the fact is, is if a tribe wants to build a casino for their economic health, that's their prerogative on their land. That said, we're also the original conservationists, right? Like, and we're also like this idea that like, but you had mentioned it earlier, Tom, that like people came here and this land was like verdant and wild. It wasn't wild. We definitely were managing this land and all of the land that the white settlers saw as being so plentiful and beautiful and amazing is because we were doing the work on those, on the land from sea to shining sea. We were doing the work on the land.

WHEELER:

You are listening to the Econews Report. And we are talking about the attempt to marry conservation and tribal justice through land back, through restoring lands to tribal nations.

MYERS:

So like to have this concept now where I guess I'd like this this like shame concept or this shame that that they're like, oh, well, tribes are just going to put a casino on it. First of all, I feel like mind your own business. Second of all, I feel like that's also not what's going to happen. So calm down and ignore ridiculous to me. It's like embarrassing. They should be embarrassed. They should be ashamed of themselves.

WHEELER:

And I've heard this about, people question this with extremely sacred places too. Yontocket for the Tolowa Dee-Ni' Nation. Somebody asked me, well, would they just build a casino there? I was like, well, probably not. It's the site of the center of the universe. There was a site of a massive massacre there. There was a village site there. I'm pretty sure that this is going to be well tended, much better tended by the Tolowa Dee-Ni' Nation.

MYERS:

But you know what that mindset is, is because I think that mindset shows who they are, not who we are. That mindset shows, like, we don't even think like that. And you guys are thinking like that, like, because would you do that? I feel like that's like, that shows, like, more about them than us, because we would not do that. And they can't understand that something is sacred to us, so sacred to us, that that's not even a consideration. So it's kind of an interesting way, if you think about where those ideas are coming from, from that side, like that this is a place that can be, anything can happen here. Like, we don't consider our places like that.

WHEELER:

Yeah, it's projection, right? It's like how the most virulent homophobes in Congress all are secretly gay, right? Like, it just says more about what they would want to do with land than what tribes would want to do with land. Alex.

LOOMER:

I was just going to point out, I mean, the areas that the state has chosen put into conservation protection for state parks or what have you, are often considered some of the most beautiful places in the state. And the tribes felt the same way, like most of these places were sacred tribal grounds as well. So like, yeah, like Molli was saying, like, these are going to be areas that obviously they want to protect.

Also, just like on a more practical level, there's federal law here, like the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act also governs this. So it's not like tribes are just building casinos left and right. I've asked opposition, I'm not going to name names here, but I asked opposition if they could give me a single example in California where a tribe got land back and built a casino on it. There are zero examples of that in California. The best they could do was an example, and this is included in one of the letters that was submitted to the committee, of the Squamish Nation up in Vancouver that got land back in the city of Vancouver and built, how dare they, housing on it. And it was like in the middle of the city too. So like, what an appropriate place to build housing. But like, they couldn't even come up with an example in the United States.

And I'm sure there are tribes somewhere in the US that yes, have taken the opportunity to further economic development for their tribe after they've been held back from that for hundreds of years. And white people have been able to profit off of the stolen land. And honestly, like these conservation organizations wouldn't have land in the first place, but for it being stolen. So it's just kind of ironic that now they're like, oh golly, like really worried that these are going to be mismanaged. It's like, how do you think you got this land in the first place?

MYERS:

Yeah, I think that, I think that AB 53 is sort of, instead of thinking it like, oh, this is going to be this big new, like a new benefit to tribes, it's just removing outdated barriers. That's, that's all that's happening here. Like, this isn't creating some sort of advantage for tribes that, like, non-profits say don't already have. And just asking for tribes to be treated the same as every other agency and government entity is being treated, we are a sovereign, we are sovereign people, tribes are sovereign governments, and they should be treated like that. And it's ridiculous, actually, that we need a piece of legislation to do that. I mean, that hasn't been done already.

WHEELER:

So, AB53 has unfortunately run into some headwinds, but I think that we're all hopeful that through a better collective push from tribes, from non-profits who support tribal-led conservation efforts like EPIC, we can hopefully get this across the finish line and have something that we can all be proud of. I will say that there are other bills that are moving through the legislature which have a substantially less opposition and are also going to advance tribal land conservation. Alex, I know that you are working on some related to fire and helping tribes lead on returning good fire to the landscape. Would you like to talk about those briefly?

LOOMER:

Yeah, I'll just flag. So one of them is another bill sponsored by the Karuk Tribe. That's AB 1891 by Senator Connolly that would help direct funding to build capacity to bring more beneficial fire back to the ground. And the other is AB 1699 that is sponsored by Pacific Forest Trust and strongly supported by the Karuk tribe. That's authored by Senator Rogers. And that's really trying to reduce barriers to putting more beneficial fire on the ground. And I think this ties back to AB 53 because the state has finally come around and like, wow, you guys were onto something with this whole good fire concept. And we're realizing like this is gonna be critical to protecting communities and ecosystems from disastrous mega fires.

Like, we need to be putting a lot more good fire on the ground. We're not nearly at the acreage goals that we should be with that. And this is something that tribes have been doing long before settlers and colonizers came to California. Like, this has been a long time practice that it's done great things for the land.

So we're finally bringing that back. And again, all the more reason we need to be putting more land back into ownership and management by tribes. Cause this is another example of like where they know the best way to manage the lands. And they've been doing it long before we all were here. So I think it's great that those aren't getting opposition. There is acknowledgement and those both have bipartisan support, I'll note. There is strong acknowledgement from the legislature and state government that tribes have really been leading the way here and should be able to continue to do so.

MYERS:

Well, it is fair to say, though, that it has taken about 30 or 40 years to get to where we are with the fire policies. And there's still a long ways to go. Like you said, there's a lot of more acres that need to be burned if we're gonna create that balance and protect our homes and our people.

LOOMER:

Yeah, and I mean, even the generation of folks that were getting arrested for arson because they were trying to put good fire on the ground. So, like, yeah, Molli, great point. Like, this is still a very tight window.

MYERS:

And like truly, I thought that it was totally, I thought that burning at night, when I was a kid, we burned at night. And I thought that's just because we burned at night. That was just what we did. But found out later on when I got older, we burned at night so you couldn't see it. So you couldn't see the smoke because they were low intensity fires. But if the Forest Service saw the smoke, then that's what would happen. It was a very real fear for me and my family when I was growing up before this current age of having a lot more acceptance of good fire. It was something that we were definitely doing in secret, even up until I was a kid.

WHEELER:

And perhaps no surprise that these good bills are coming out of Assemblymembers Rogers and Connolly, both of whom have deep relationships with the tribes here up on the North Coast. So I think there's a degree, perhaps, by which EPIC, through our friendship and partnership with tribes and tribal members, maybe we're a little bit, like, hipper to the jive faster than other conservation groups in the state because we know the folks who are doing the good work and we've seen it. And so maybe we can focus a little bit on some of the other good work that folks are doing.

And Molli, I would love for the listening audience to become familiar with both of your organizations, Ridges to Riffles and the Klamath Indigenous Land Trust. So let's perhaps start with Ridges to Riffles and the inspiration behind this organization that you helped to found and what you're seeking to do.

MYERS:

So Ridges-to-Riffles Indigenous Conservation Group was co-founded by myself and Amy Cordales in 2022, formally, became 501c3. And our work, you know, my work at R2R, Ridges-to-Riffles, is really what kind of led me into the work at KILT. But so at R2R, our mission is to protect and advocate for tribes. And whatever that looks like, that's had a lot of different sort of iterations over this formative time. Initially we were really involved with the dam removal process, and I was engaged in dam removal from the time I was a teenager, so over two decades. So it was really amazing to see that come to fruition.

And I think what we've been doing now a lot of is, well, we're doing a lot of restoration work. So we have intertribal coalitions happening that are helping to guide restoration work in the upper basin, like in and around and above the dam footprint. And that is a really, really cool restoration project because we have, we're sort of piloting this like fully indigenous-led restoration work where typically the engineers will come and they'll be like, these are the plans, let's do the plans. And that's like consultation, right?

This time we're trying to turn that upside down so that first we bring the plans to the tribal representatives, and then they can give feedback. And we're sort of building the design plans around their feedback. So that's like some really exciting stuff we're doing at R2R. We're always building capacity there. We're still taking on projects that are new to us and are new to the basin. We have a new river. I don't know if you guys know that. We have a new river. And so there's a lot that we're sort of like taking generational knowledge and that traditional knowledge and like really getting a chance to implement it on the river.

So that's a big part of what I do at R2R. And then two years ago, I think, so right after the dam removal, Pacificorp, who was the former owner of the dams, had a lot of land, 10,000 acres of land that was up and above the former dam site. And it was just privately held land that Pacificorp owned for the purposes of moving their power around. They didn't want it anymore. They were like, what are we going to do? So they actually approached us and KIL is actually formed by members, community members. We were all involved in the dam removal campaign and in the grassroots side of the dam removal campaign, as well as like some of the policy stuff. But we don't represent tribal governments, actually. We actually represent the community. And so we went out and we actually raised the money to purchase the land from Pacificorp, which is kind of a controversial land back method. But the way we saw it, it was important. It's important. It's important. And sometimes if it takes taking money from a philanthropic source and then giving it to a corporation, that land is now under tribal stewardship.

I mean, KIL's ultimate goal as well is rematriation. So we will be looking to gift this land back. I don't like that language, but we will be looking to move this land back into tribal hands at some point. And so what I thought was interesting about this AB53 is that we as a nonprofit are eligible to apply for these funds. And in fact, doing a little research today, I found out that KIL is actually really well situated for some of these funds. But then were we to land back it to the tribe, they would not be eligible for the funds. And that's just so ironic to me that they would have to form a nonprofit to be able to do those things.

So just looking down the road at the next phase, 10 years for KIL, it's really exciting. I don't know what else we're going to do. We have our hands pretty full with the 10,000 acres right now. That 10,000 acres is quite a bit, actually, when you start to work towards stewardship of it in the traditional ways that we want to do it. So yeah, it's really exciting and we're looking forward, I'm looking forward to the day when we can give that land back to the tribes and they can apply for these grants on their own without needing a nonprofit to do it because AB53.

WHEELER:

Well, I think we're in this very exciting moment where land back is occurring and we're building capacity internally within tribes to manage more land. And so I hope it's this snowballing process where more land comes back, more capacity gets built, more folks are trained to use the heavy machinery that's sometimes necessary, that we have more tribal members who are forest ecologists and hydrologists and all the ologists that we need in projects like these, and then we just keep going and keep going and keep going until we have as much land back as we can.

Looking at the Klamath, the Blue Creek acquisition by the Yurok Tribe was the thing that I think turned myself on to the idea of tribal land back, where 50,000 acres of former industrial timberland from Green Diamond Resources Company were brought back to the Yurok Tribe, and the Yurok Tribe's now sustainably managing that land for resource and cultural purposes. I'd love our tribes here to be the seed by which we can experiment and try out all these ideas and for this to spread beyond just the North Coast and to the greater United States. Alex, if folks want to help get AB 53 across that finish line, what can they do?

LOOMER:

You can write your senator and ask them to put language back in that would allow for land transfers to tribes.

WHEELER:

I will share in the comment section a letter from a variety of different conservation groups in support of this. So I think that in the end we'll ultimately find that more conservation groups are in support than have reservations about this bill. So I think we're making progress as a conservation community, albeit slow.

All right, well, Molli and Alex, thank you so much for joining the Econews Report. I love having you on and I'm excited to have you on again in the future to talk about some more of your great successes.

MYERS:

Thanks so much, Tom.

WHEELER:

All right, join us again on this time and channel next week for more environmental news from the North Coast of California.