<
https://www.vox.com/climate/23906426/winnemem-wintu-land-back-run4salmon-chinook-california-indigenous-peoples-rights-sovereignty>
"Globally, Indigenous peoples protect 80 percent of the earth’s biodiversity on
the lands they’ve maintained for centuries, despite being only 5 percent of the
world’s population. And when Indigenous peoples have sovereignty over their
lands — that is, the ability to own and care for land in accordance with their
traditions and desires — everyone benefits.
No one understands that dynamic more than the Winnemem Wintu tribe.
The tribe, which is located in the Shasta Cascade region of Northern
California, has been fighting for almost a decade to reintroduce their sacred
salmon, the winter-run Chinook, to the McCloud River. For millennia, the tribe
ensured the safe travel of the Chinook upstream to colder waters, so the fish
could reproduce. They’d light fires at night along the river, as well as
physically carry fish in baskets on foot if there were obstacles along the way.
Then came the Shasta Dam. Up until the 1930s, many Winnemem Wintu lived on the
lands surrounding the McCloud River without legally owning it. Congress passed
the Central Valley Project Indian Lands Acquisition Act to take whatever
allotment lands tribal members owned in advance of the dam’s construction. The
plan was to flood the immediate area to create a reservoir with the waters of
the upper Sacramento, Pit, and McCloud Rivers. Tribal members were displaced,
and hundreds of ancestral Winnemem Wintu villages, sacred sites, and burial
grounds now sit underwater at the bottom of the reservoir.
The dam also blocked the salmon from being able to return to their spawning
grounds, leading their population to decline. Climate change, the dam, and
proposed changes to nearby estuaries now pose further threats to the endangered
fish.
The tribe’s lack of federal recognition prevents it from having the same
protections other nations do. As such, the Winnemem Wintu’s opportunities to
return to unaffected portions of their land — now considered public lands or
private property held by non-Indigenous peoples — are limited.
But today, on Indigenous Peoples’ Day no less, the tribe purchased 1,080 acres
of their ancestral lands. More than $2 million in private donations were used
to fund the sale. What was left over, as well as separate grant funding, will
support the construction of an eco-village, which will marry Indigenous living
traditions with future-forward land management practices.
It’s a win not only for the tribe, but for the Indigenous-led land back
movement as a whole. (Colonization dispossessed millions of Indigenous peoples
from their lands globally, leading to stark disparities in income and health.
The movement aims to get ancestral lands back in Indigenous hands.)
“Having the land back is really what is needed for tribes to reestablish their
ways and to bring them back into their collective tribalism,” said Chief Caleen
Sisk. “A lot of prayer and good-hearted people helped us to get there. But I
wouldn’t have imagined that we could have ever done that.”"
Via
Future Crunch:
<
https://futurecrunch.com/good-news-child-nutrition-human-rights-bhutan-ocean-png/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
