500 Acres In California Redwood Forest Returned To Native American Tribes

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In recent years, the descendants of Native American tribes have started to get their land back.

According to CBS8, Save the Redwoods League announced it is returning more than 500 acres on the Lost Coast to the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council.

The 10 tribes that have inhabited the area for thousands of years will now be responsible for protecting the land called Tc'ih-Léh-Dûñ, "Fish Run Place," in the Sinkyone language.

“It’s a real blessing,” said Priscilla Hunter, of the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians. “It’s like a healing for our ancestors. I know our ancestors are happy. This was given to us to protect.”

According to Hunter, her people were removed or forced to flee before the forest was largely stripped for timber.

This is another milestone in the growing Land Back movement to return Indigenous homelands to the ancestors who lived there long before European settlers arrived.

The U.S government appropriated tens of millions of acres of Native American land until 1934 through laws and treaties like the Indian Removal Act which was signed by Andrew Jackson in 1830.

The Save the Redwoods League first worked with the Sinkyone council in 2012 when they transferred a 164-acre plot nearby.

The league also paid $37 million for a 5-mile stretch of the Lost Coast from a lumber company to protect it from logging.


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