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<\/a>Valentin Lopez at the Quiroste Valley Cultural Preserve – Photo credit Sara French.<\/p><\/div>\n
The land is part of who we are. It is our history. We connected with Valentin Lopez<\/strong>, the chairman of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, about efforts to re-learn and reclaim cultural traditions to care for the earth in their ancestral territory. He was also be our featured guest for our October 2020 Under the Redwoods<\/strong><\/em><\/a> webinar. You can see it and our other webinars here<\/a>.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been the chairman since 2003 of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band. In 2006, our elders came to the council. Our creation story tells us to take care of mother earth and we started looking for a way to do this. We worked with Pinnacles [National Park] and State Parks, and we began working with many others so we could have access to our traditional tribal territory. And in 2012 we developed the Amah Mutsun Land Trust<\/a> with the support of Sempervirens Fund.<\/p>\n First, tribal knowledge of our ancestors, a person who knew our ceremonies was very valuable, a person who knew our songs was very valuable, a person who knew how to take care of geese, and mammals, and plants, and mother earth was very valuable. That allowed us to fulfill our obligation to our creator.<\/p>\n Second, relationships with the land, mother earth, trees, animals, and our families, neighboring tribes, and to our Creator.<\/p>\n At Pinnacles, they had a new superintendent who was interested in a relationship with the tribe. We met with him and he asked us to become part of Pinnacles and explore how the land and wildlife was being stewarded. They had plants for basketry and a large field of traditional native grasses and they wanted to know about how we could steward the lands, but the truth was, because of our brutal history we lost a lot of our traditional knowledge. How do we say yes?<\/p>\n We went back to council and council said we have to recognize it is isn\u2019t our fault, but we had to restore our knowledge. The ones we trust are those that work on the environment. You only get one chance with us.<\/p>\n We said yes [to the partnership]. That was hard to do and to trust anyone outside the tribe. It, and other efforts since, have helped restore a lot of the knowledge we lost.<\/p>\n Today, we have [agreements and] access to close to 140,000 acres. Not that we are accessing it all, but we work with land trusts, state parks, and the Bureau of Land Management, and we have project areas all over for research, surveys, and stewardship.<\/p>\n Native Steward harvesting tule to build a tule hut. Photo credit Plus M Productions.<\/p><\/div>\n The native plants before contact were our medicine, food, and building materials\u2014our grocery, our pharmacy, and general store. The genocide that happened to the Indians happened to our environments. They brought in their alfalfa, oats, and barley and they took over the landscapes. Today our grasses are 96% non-native.<\/p>\n What\u2019s important for us are surveys. We look for patches of native plants so we can collect seeds so we can replant them in other spots, and we try to cultivate that patch to grow bigger and bigger every year.<\/p>\n The other thing we recognize is we\u2019ve been talking only about stewardship. When I talk to funders, they don\u2019t fund that. To a lot of organizations stewardship means put a fence around it, put on a trail, and put up signs. That\u2019s ridiculous. Stewardship is relationships with the land, the ground, the water, the insects, the air. They are our relatives. Today many are working hard to develop stewardship programs that follow what we are talking about. Environmental organizations want to take care of Mother Earth but they don\u2019t know how to do it.<\/p>\n Members of the Amah Mutsun Land Trust Native Stewardship Corps in 2019. Photo credit Ally Arganbright.<\/p><\/div>\n We started it when state parks and University of California Berkeley were doing archaeological work and our youth started working with them and they were very curious about the work. When we started the land trust, stewardship was always part of it\u2014returning our youth to the territories to learn.<\/p>\n A lot of the stewards worked for two years and carried that knowledge out into careers in other organizations, but we needed stewards to learn and teach the knowledge for future generations.<\/p>\n We knew about the use of fire and frequent burning to reduce the risk of catastrophic fires and to enhance the native plants\u2014a lot of seeds germinate with fire, heat, and smoke\u2014and when we returned fire to the land we saw a great abundance of plants.<\/p>\n People didn\u2019t believe us that fire and our traditions would be healthy for the ground. Fire softens up the seeds. Opens up the land so the sun will beat down and help the germination process. Now the scientists say, let\u2019s do this!<\/p>\n The true history of Native people has never been told, so they celebrate without telling the truth. Truly celebrate by telling the true history. Institutions that perpetrated the destruction of Native people should talk about what they are doing to rectify that and heal themselves. Perpetrators need to heal for the atrocities they committed. The day does nothing for Native people.<\/p>\n Logical to see, but we didn\u2019t put 2 plus 2 together: the way our ancestors managed the land is critical for addressing climate change issues. Our ancestors tell us how to develop sustainable environments. Native plant roots systems go down 12-14-18 inches deep and are fire- and drought-resistant and resistant to disease. There\u2019s a lot of advantages to native plants.<\/p>\n Low intensity fires go quickly, but don\u2019t set the big trees on fire and that\u2019s great for managing the land.<\/p>\n Valentin Lopez – Photo credit EkOngKar Khalsa<\/p><\/div>\n There was a fire at Pinnacles National Park in 2011. Deer grasses are important for basketry. Before the fire the deer grasses would have 3 to 5 stalks per plant. After the fire they had many more stalks per plant, so that improved. Redmaids, poppies, tobacco, and other culturally significant native plants were also more abundant after the fire. It is rewarding to discover what is waiting in the soil.<\/p>\n When I first went to college, I saw: psychology, sociology, and science and I wondered what science was. I looked it up. Science is the study of knowledge. Our ancestors were scientists\u2014 they studied knowledge: how to manage our land with fires, how to cultivate plants, berries, and grasses, and how to take care of animals and insects. For migrating geese, one of their favorite foods are insects. We would steward land to have an abundance of insects for geese, so they could get their body weight back so they could continue their journey.<\/p>\n That there\u2019s interest in helping our tribe. We would have never believed that an organization like Sempervirens Fund would have sponsored us, or state parks would help us get a grant to steward on their lands.<\/p>\n Restoring the landscapes of Central California means restoring a coastal prairie. The Spanish Mission period outlawed fire, and trees and shrubs encroached and the prairies were gone and the biodiversity is gone. Restoring the coastal prairie restores biodiversity. Coastal redwoods were in the foothills; they were not on the coast. The shrubs came first, then the Douglas fir, then the redwoods.<\/p>\n They are important because they are important to the species that depend on them. They were important for housing and firewood. Birds preferred the trees. We don\u2019t have a lot of knowledge about them because we relied on oak, pine, and hazel. We had the same responsibility for them and we know that the bark was resistant to fire so we didn\u2019t worry much about them burning.<\/p>\n hop (pronounced h\u014dp)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hear more from Val Lopez Under the Redwoods.<\/em><\/a> In October 2020, we discussed the cultural land traditions and needs of Indigenous people in the Santa Cruz Mountains region.<\/p>\nTell us about your role with the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band and the land trust.<\/h2>\n
You once said: \u201cTrue riches are not what\u2019s in your bank account but your relationships and one of the most important is your relationship with Mother Earth.\u201d What defines true riches for you?<\/h2>\n
What has happened since the 2006 meeting with the elders?<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Why is re-learning traditional practices important today?<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Tell us about the Native Stewardship Corps.<\/h2>\n
As you\u2019ve re-learned cultural traditions with the stewardship corps, what have been some surprising outcomes?<\/h2>\n
What does Indigenous Peoples’ Day mean to you?<\/h2>\n
How do your cultural traditions inform our approaches to climate resilience?<\/h2>\n
<\/a>What is your experience with discovering new plants after fire?<\/h2>\n
It seems the Amah Mutsun are today\u2019s community scientists.<\/h2>\n
What has surprised you most since you began this work?<\/h2>\n
Why are the redwoods of the Santa Cruz mountains so important?<\/h2>\n
Do the Amah Mutsun have a name for coast redwoods?<\/h2>\n