Along the Klamath River in Northern California, where logging companies once cut ancient redwood trees, vast tracts of land have been returned to the Yurok Tribe in a years-long effort that tribal leaders say will enable the restoration of forests and the protection of a watershed that is vital for salmon.
The effort, which unfolded gradually over the last 23 years, culminated in May as Western Rivers Conservancy turned over 14,968 acres to the Yurok Tribe. It was the last portion of 47,097 acres that the nonprofit group acquired and transferred to the tribe in what is thought to be the largest “land back” deal in California history.
Members of the tribe say they are celebrating the return of their ancestral lands along Blue Creek, a major tributary that meets the Klamath about 40 miles south of the Oregon border. Blue Creek holds cultural and spiritual significance for the Yurok, and its cold, clear waters provide a refuge for salmon.
“We are salmon people,” said Joseph L. James, chairman of the Yurok Tribe. “The river takes care of us, and it’s our job to take care of the river.”
In all, the tribe now owns an additional 73 square miles along the lower Klamath River, including much of the Blue Creek watershed. The conifer forests, which were heavily logged over the last century, will be managed by the tribal government as two protected areas, the Blue Creek Salmon Sanctuary and the Yurok Tribal Community Forest.
Yurok leaders say regaining stewardship of these lands contributes to larger efforts to revive the ecological health of the Klamath watershed, where last year the removal of four dams farther upstream restored a free-flowing stretch of the river and enabled salmon to reach spawning areas that had been inaccessible for more than a century.
“This land is back home with us now, and we’ll continue that work that we have done as Yurok people to protect the land, protect the streams, provide for our people and provide for the environment,” James said.
In addition to Blue Creek, the land includes other streams that flow into the Klamath.
The tribe plans projects to create healthier stream habitats for fish, and to restore meadows and prairies. In the forests, they plan to use controlled burns to thin vegetation that has built up.
Some old logging roads are being decommissioned, while other roads are set to be upgraded.
“We’re going to continue to work to bring back our wildlife population, our fish population,” James said. “It’s going to take a lot of work, but a lot of people are going to benefit from this.”
Beyond the local benefits, James said the effort serves as an example for the Land Back movement, in which Native people in many areas are seeking to regain ancestral lands that were taken from them generations ago.
“This is what it looks like when we talk about land back,” James said. “Land back means giving the land back to its original people with no strings attached. Let them provide their traditional knowledge to heal the land, the environment.”
He said reaching this successful conclusion involved years of efforts by leaders of the tribe and Western Rivers Conservancy, as well as help from other partners. He said the deal should start more discussions nationwide about how other tribes can advance toward regaining their traditional lands.
“It’s a big win for Indian Country,” he said. “Here is a model that people could use, from our experience, to get land back.”
The effort has more than doubled the tribe’s landholdings. The lands were previously owned by Green Diamond Resource Co. and its predecessor Simpson Logging Co., which harvested timber there for nearly a century. The last time logging occurred on the property was in 2007.
Western Rivers Conservancy, a Portland, Ore.-based nonprofit, signed a purchase agreement with Green Diamond in 2008 after five years of negotiations and efforts to identify funding. The lands were gradually acquired by the group between 2009 and 2017, and were transferred to the tribe in multiple phases.
The conservation group used an innovative funding strategy, assembling $56 million from foundations, corporations and philanthropists, as well as other sources such as tax credits, public grants and the sale of carbon credits.
State funding and support for the effort came from the California Wildlife Conservation Board and the California State Coastal Conservancy, as well as other agencies.
“We put together this mosaic of different funding sources,” said Nelson Mathews, president of Western Rivers Conservancy. “This is the result of commitment, persistence and tenacity.”
Mathews’ organization focuses on protecting rivers for fish, wildlife and the public, and was drawn to the project for its conservation benefits. By establishing the salmon sanctuary in Blue Creek, the deal safeguards a vital cold-water habitat for fish including Chinook salmon, coho salmon and steelhead.
“With climate change, cold water is at a premium for these rivers, and it’s critical,” Mathews said. “So having complete protection of that watershed is important.”
He said the deal shows how conservation goals and tribes’ efforts to regain lands can align in ways that bring tremendous benefits.
“It’s good for the soul to protect these rivers, and it’s a double benefit to see the tribe get their land back,” Mathews said.
Members of the Yurok Tribe say this effort and others like it are a critically important step in grappling with the lasting effects of colonization.
During the 1800s, California’s Native population was decimated by diseases, displacement and violence, including state-sponsored killings.
The Yurok reservation was established by the federal government in 1855, confining the tribe to an area that covered only a tiny fraction of their ancestral territory. In the late 1800s, white settlers and speculators found ways to secure additional lands along the Klamath River where they could extract valuable redwood, in some cases by bribing U.S. General Land Office officials as they fraudulently acquired thousands of acres of timberlands.
Today, the Yurok Tribe is the largest tribe in California, with more than 6,400 enrolled members.
“We are trying to recover from colonization,” said Amy Bowers Cordalis, a lawyer for the tribe and executive director of the Ridges to Riffles Indigenous Conservation Group. “And we are just now getting into a place where we are starting to see some of the fruits of our efforts, between dam removal and now land back efforts.”
Regaining these lands enables the tribe “to start rebuilding and to start taking care of our land and our resources,” she said. “We are strongly committed to living in a balance with the natural world.”
She said for members of the tribe, visiting the cold, clear waters of Blue Creek is a spiritual experience. “It’s one of the most wild places in all of California, and it is glorious.”
It’s possible to see some of the area by boat, traveling from the Klamath River to the mouth of Blue Creek. But for now, access to the area is limited.
James said that could change in the future, once restoration and other work is completed.
“At some point in time, we have an opportunity to turn that into a big, beautiful park,” James said. “We’ve got to heal it first, put our resources in it, and it’s going to take some time.”
He said the tribe’s members feel delighted to be once again stewarding these lands and waterways, as their ancestors once did.
“It’s a beautiful feeling knowing that we’ll have this land in our hands moving forward for the next seven generations, for our Yurok people and our grandchildren.”
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