California unveiled a plan Tuesday to bring at least 7.5 million acres of land and coastal waters under the care of indigenous tribes.
This number represents approximately 7% of the state’s land and water. It also matches the amount of land the federal government promised it would set aside as reservations for indigenous tribes after California joined the Union in 1850. Congress ultimately rejected these treaties in a secret meeting – following state pressure – and failed to notify the tribes, many of whom upheld their end of the agreement to relocate.
The new policy set by the California Natural Resources Agency aims to repair the damage caused by state actions to ban tribes from their homelands and criminalize their cultural and land management practices. These actions not only harmed native communities, whose cultures and ways of life are deeply linked to the plants, animals, and landscapes of their homeland, but also caused well-documented damage to ecosystems through loss of biodiversity, takeover of invasive species, degradation of water quality, and increased wildfire danger.
“Tribal leadership is so important to all of us … natural resources and everything we rely on to live healthy, happy lives,” said Geneva EB Thompson, deputy secretary for tribal affairs at the Natural Resources Agency. “Bringing Native people into nature will also bring with it tribal stewardship. The basket weaver, she can’t help herself; she’ll take care of those basket weaving materials.”
Chuckwalla National Monument, a protected area in Southern California, was established by then-President Biden in January 2025 and spans about 700,000 acres.
(TechPatel Cuauhtzin/For The Times)
Indigenous advocates applauded the policy announcement, but said more work is needed.
“The California Natural Resources Agency is taking important steps to acknowledge and address undocumented treaties,” Morning Star Gully, executive director and founder of Indigenous Justice and a member of the Ajumawi Band of the Pit River Tribe, said in a statement. At the same time, “unless there is a true and sustained commitment to land return, co-management, and meaningful investment for all California tribes, correcting these historical injustices will remain a long-term effort that will take decades to fully address.”
The policy outlines three types of land-use agreements: access agreements that allow tribal members on land to reintegrate it into their communities and cultures, cooperative agreements in which landowners work with tribes to care for the land, and land return agreements in which landowners transfer ownership of the land to tribes.
The Natural Resources Agency estimates that more than 1.7 million acres of land is already under the management of tribes, including more than 100,000 through state land return programs, more than 700,000 held as reservations and trust lands for federally recognized tribes, and more than 900,000 acres through partnerships with California State Parks.
The agency has not set a date by which it expects to reach its 7.5 million acre goal. Some estimates also suggest that the area in unproven treaties is closer to 8.5 million.
Angela Mooney D’Arcy, founder of the Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples, is photographed at Lewis McAdams Riverfront Park in Los Angeles in May 2023.
(Jason Armand/Los Angeles Times)
“It’s really exciting to see a lifetime of work come to fruition for so many of the Native people of California who have been my mentors,” said Angela Mooney D’Arcy, executive director and founder of the Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples. “As an Indigenous California advocate for land restitution for the last 30 years, what came to my mind when reading this document was how useful it could have been in many different instances over the last 30 years.”
Access and cooperative agreements – and sometimes even land return agreements – come with requirements specifying what tribes can and cannot do with the land. Many need to negotiate sometimes difficult relationships with land managers who may have different priorities. This is a far cry from tribes keeping their homeland as sovereign nations, they have the freedom to care for the land as they see fit; However, these agreements can also help support tribes that do not yet have the capacity to manage hundreds or thousands of acres of land on their own.
Mooney D’Arcy, who is the exchequer, hopes that when the rubber meets the road, the Natural Resources Agency will step in and support these types of stewardship agreements when local organizations and agencies are resistant.
He said, “We may have these noble goals, but if the state is serious about these goals and vision, it must also make sure to be present and … ready to advocate for the tribes.”
California’s indigenous history after European contact is dark and violent.
Many tribal leaders were forced to sign native treaties with no translation aids to help them understand what they were signing. The state’s first governor declared that California should hope that confrontations between white settlers and indigenous communities would result in the settlers resolving a “war of extermination” that would last until “the Indian race becomes extinct.” The state’s first legislative session outlawed the indigenous practice of deliberately setting fires to manage the land.
Yak Titu Titu Yak Oilahini Northern Chumash Tribe member Tyler Mata participates in a planned cultural gathering at the Johnson Ranch in San Luis Obispo on Dec. 11.
(Ruby Vallou/For The Times)
“We’ve seen really devastating impacts. We’re seeing these algal blooms that are now overtaking our lakes and affecting our streams and our rivers,” Gailey said. Meanwhile, some state parks “are just a giant tinderbox because it’s not being managed properly under tribal management.”
Recent examples of tribes returning to care for their homelands, sometimes for the first time in more than a century, give Thompson — the Natural Resources Agency’s first deputy secretary for Tribal Affairs — hope for the future.
He recalled the first land return he oversaw in this role: 46 acres of coastal wetlands to the Wiyot tribe. During tours of the newly returned lands, tribal culture experts set out to care for various native plants they felt needed some love.
The tribes participate in a friendly race after building traditional tule boats on the American River in Folsom, California.
(Corey Cordero)
More recently, he participated in an inter-tribal boat race with the Wilton Rancheria, Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, and the United Auburn Indian Community, thanks to an access agreement with California State Parks. Tribal youth worked with elders to harvest tule – a stalked plant native to California’s wetlands – and use it in the construction of traditional boats. (The state park provided life jackets, lifeguards, and food.)
The Natural Resources Agency’s new policy is an effort to capture these moments not as one-off stories of healing, but as part of the state’s official practice going forward, Thompson said.
“I’m very proud of this policy, but I’m very excited to see what impact it’s going to have,” he said. “It is much more beautiful to see it in practice than to write it on paper.”
