<
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/17112024/massive-land-return-to-maine-penobscot-indigenous-tribe/>
"Chuck Loring knows all the good spots for finding dropped moose antlers. It’s
part passion and part professional. He spends whatever free time he can packing
his snowmobile into the bed of his truck and hauling it out to the Penobscot
tribal trust land in north central Maine, where he works as the tribe’s
director of natural resources.
Sometimes, Loring’s 4-year-old daughter, River, will join, her tiny toddler
head dwarfed by a big, bulbous helmet. When the conditions are right, the
snowmobile makes it easier to cut across this otherwise quiet wilderness. On
this March visit, though, the snow is too light and too fresh for the
snowmobile. Anything too heavy sink inches deep in powder. Undisturbed by the
recent storm, ash and pine trees tower over snowy banks and logging roads. It’s
hard to understand how someone could be so familiar with the paths of this
remote forestland, where the freshly fallen snow absorbs any sound. The silence
and the absence of tire tracks impart a sense that this land is the domain of
the moose and the ash trees more than that of any human.
But Loring now stands at the forefront of a project that suggests even a domain
as wild as this one can be shared, to the mutual benefit of both the land and
the humans who live nearby. Many view a massive land return he is leading as a
proof of concept in unrestricted, Native-led conservation.
The nonprofit Trust for Public Land is set to return 31,000 acres purchased
from a timber investor in Maine to Penobscot tribal management. It will be the
largest return of its kind to an Indigenous tribe in U.S. history, without any
easements or other restrictions.
It’s a piece of a bigger shift in conservation thinking; rather than putting a
premium on pristine and untouched wilderness—as centuries of conservationists
have—multiple environmental organizations are acknowledging that tribal
stewardship benefits the land as well as Indigenous sovereignty, even when it
chafes against traditional conservation models."
Via
Fix the News:
https://fixthenews.com/279-breakneck-solarisation/
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
