STEWARDSHIP The InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Ten Tribes Reclaiming, Stewarding, and Restoring Ancestral Lands BY HAWK ROSALES he 4,000-acre (1,619 ha) InterTribal Sinkyone eons throughout this land. The success of their cultural man- Wilderness is located along the “Lost Coast” of agement was informed by close observations of the seasons Tnorthern California, an area that holds great cul- and other natural phenomena; the understanding that one tural and spiritual significance for the indigenous Tribal must never take more than one needed; a unique set of orig- Peoples of this region. inal instructions that had been given spiritually to the people; Located 200 miles (323 km) and a vast body of unsurpassed wisdom and knowledge north of San Francisco, this gained by thousands of years of living daily with respect upon portion of the Sinkyone land Mother Earth. is the longest stretch of per- manently protected coastal wilderness in the lower 48 states of the United States. It is the westernmost part of Hawk Rosales. the vast Sinkyone Indian Aboriginal Territory that includes the Wild and Scenic Eel River, the stunning and mountainous Lost Coast, and the vestiges of a 3,000-year- old temperate rain forest. History of Designation For thousands of years, the indigenous people of this land employed a complex and sophisticated system of cultural stewardship that significantly influenced the biological diver- sity and abundance of the Sinkyone temperate rainforest. The land management methods employed by the Sinkyone and other neighboring Tribes of California’s North Coast included rotational burning of understory plants to ensure the health and productivity of important species; selective thinning and harvesting of seaweeds, basket-making materials, medicines, and a host of other plants; breaching of berms at river mouths to enable salmon migration (see figure 1); the transplanting of Figure 1—InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness, Wolf Creek salmonid jump desirable plant species; and countless other practices that were pools. Photo by Joe Scriven; © InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council. conducted hand-in-hand with prayers and ceremonies for 8 International Journal of Wilderness APRIL 2010 • VOLUME 16, NUMBER 1 The Sinkyone people established and inhabited permanent villages and seasonal encampments throughout their territory. Although autonomous, the many Sinkyone groups inhabiting these villages and encampments shared distinctive cultural and social charac- teristics that distinguished them from neighboring Indian peoples. These shared characteristics included an Athabaskan language unique to the Sinkyone, a common system of spiri- tual beliefs and practices, distinctive styles for their art forms and architec- ture, and commonly understood territorial boundaries within which members of the Sinkyone bands social- Figure 2—Looking south from Needle Rock to Bear Harbor. Photo by © Hawk Rosales. ized, gathered and hunted food sources, and conducted trade. They utilized the eventually became enrolled members spiritual beliefs of Native peoples of prairies and meadows, the river valleys, at several Tribes located throughout the redwood region when she explained the redwood forests, and the coastal the region. the importance of this great tree: areas throughout the year to gather In the face of this profound suf- The redwood trees are sacred. traditional foods (see figure 2). This fering and loss, the descendants of the They are a special gift and reminder varied land was the place in which they original Sinkyone people retained their from the Great Creator to the lived and practiced their traditional ancient connections to Sinkyone and, human beings. The Great Creator ways for untold generations. throughout the generations, have con- made everything, including trees of In the mid-1850s, however, the tinued to travel seasonally to their all kinds, but he wanted to leave a Sinkyone people were suddenly and ancestral lands to harvest traditional special gift for his children. So he violently confronted with invading food and medicine plants and to offer took a little medicine from each tree, multitudes of Euro-American settlers their prayers. he said a prayer and sang a powerful who considered themselves entitled to song, and then he mixed it all with indigenous peoples’ lands and resources. Redwood Ecosystem the blood of our people. Then he Within 15 years, most of the Sinkyone With the genocide of the Sinkyone created this special redwood tree people were annihilated through a com- people came the ecocide of the ancient from this medicine. He left it on bination of massacres, slavery, forced forests of Kahs-tcho (redwood tree), Earth as a demonstration of his love relocations, starvation, land theft, intro- considered by local Tribes as especially for his children. The redwood trees duced diseases, rape, impoverishment, sacred. The people used various parts have a lot of power: they are the and other atrocities. The state and fed- of the redwood in the manufacture of tallest, live the longest, and are the eral governments paid white citizens for their houses, clothing, baskets, fish most beautiful trees in the world. the scalps of Sinkyone men, women, traps, canoes, and a host of other Destroy these trees and you destroy and children, and many Indian toddlers items. Carved parts of the canoe cor- the Creator’s love. And if you destroy and young people were sold as slaves to responded to various parts of the that which the Creator loves so wealthy families throughout California. human body, such as the heart and much, you will eventually destroy The U.S. Army removed Sinkyone sur- lungs. The Sinkyone people consid- mankind. (National Park Service vivors to concentration camps, called ered their canoes to be alive, and they 1994, unpaginated) reservations, which were established often spoke to them. A traditional throughout the region. In the ensuing religious leader of the Chilula people, Commercial harvest of the old years, Sinkyone people married other whose territory is located to the north- growth redwoods of the region began as peoples of local Tribal affiliations and east of the Sinkyone, expressed the early as the 1850s, but large portions of APRIL 2010 • VOLUME 16, NUMBER 1 International Journal of Wilderness 9 Four separate conservation easements protect such as California State Parks, Redwood National Park, Save the Redwoods the land’s cultural and ecological values League, and others have helped pre- in perpetuity. serve scattered residual stands of ancient redwoods, thus ensuring at least some legacy for future genera- the ancient forest remained intact until from societal racism and unjust govern- tions of humans. the late 1940s when an “improved” mental policies. In order to survive, style of bulldozer dramatically changed many Tribal members were forced to Environmental Movement logging methods and the rate of extrac- work for the timber companies, felling tion. With the advent of this new the ancient and sacred redwood trees During the 1960s and 1970s another equipment, steep slopes that had been that had sheltered and provided for kind of settler began arriving in the previously inaccessible were now open their prosperity for countless genera- North Coast. People who had become to unrestrained clear-cut harvesting. tions. During the 100-year heyday of disillusioned by the consumerism, The ensuing pillage destroyed most of North Coast timber operations, many aggression, and hypocrisy of American the original redwood ecosystem and in white society viewed the juxtaposi- society sought refuge and peace in set in motion a severe decline in the tion of timber industry profits and remote locations within the forests of health and productivity of native sal- Native impoverishment through the the North Coast. They soon were con- monid fisheries. lens of the Manifest Destiny doctrine fronted by horrific clear-cut logging Beginning in the mid-1800s, a that supported this dreadful disparity. operations within their viewsheds and long succession of commercial timber Today, we refer to it as genocide and watersheds as the timber companies interests held title to a vast acreage of environmental racism. expanded into previously unentered redwood forestland within the Sinkyone Because redwoods regenerate both areas of old growth. The new settlers territory and neighboring aboriginal by seed and stump sprout, and grow quickly organized by inspecting and Tribal lands. These interests grew rapidly, many areas of the North Coast documenting damage, researching envi- wealthy from their exploitation of the redwood rain forest have been sub- ronmental laws, and protesting at sacred redwood trees, while the Tribal jected to clear-cutting three or more locations where old trees were being cut communities who had occupied these times. Less than 4% of the region’s or were scheduled for cutting. They lands for millennia suffered economic original old growth redwoods are still chained themselves to redwoods, block- impoverishment as well as oppression standing. Fortunately, organizations aded logging sites, were arrested, and reached out to other potential North Coast allies. Efforts were made to con- tact local Tribal representatives and an important dialogue began between the leaders of the indigenous community and the environmental movement. Soon, Tribal members were joining nonnative activists and protesters at var- ious sites on Sinkyone land threatened by logging. A lawsuit was brought by the Environmental Protection Information Center, the