LAND BACK via direct donation, loans or state grants: How do tribal members actually use these parcels? And would YOU return your property to the Wailaki, Lassik, Sinkyone or Wiyot ?
Do you know how Land Back works in California? Local tribes can receive direct donations but they can also purchase property at fair market value. They use state funding like the Tribal Nature-Based Solutions program, or federal tribal lending paths to buy strategic acreage, especially parcels with headwaters and old-growth oak or tanoak woodlands.
I’m curious what people's thoughts are about this process, specifically tribal members. If a tribe reacquires land through a buyout, is there even an appreciable impact on your community? Are people actually going out to gather acorns, harvest soaproot and rushes, collect spring water, or manage the land with cultural burning? Or do bureaucratic obstacles prevent people from actually accessing and using the land once it's acquired?
On the flip side, maybe the biggest obstacle is just finding willing private landowners. Has anyone here actually returned their private rural land to the original Indigenous people?
I'm looking for opinions, information, and especially first-person accounts of parcels returned to tribal hands in Humboldt County.