December 31, 2008
Two documentaries which feature the cultural land conservation work of InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council have involved recent visits to Sinkyone land, where filmmakers interviewed Tribal community members and filmed restoration projects on InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness land and in the adjacent Sinkyone Wilderness State Park.
The first film, Emerging Opportunities in Tribal Conservation: Using Private Conservation Tools to Protect Native American Lands and Lifeways, will complement a book featuring fourteen case studies in five states where Tribes and Tribal organizations are utilizing land trusts and conservation easements to achieve access, stewardship, and restoration goals for their ancestral lands. The book examines successful collaborations between Tribes and land trusts that are protecting and stewarding the environment. InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council's work is featured prominently, as it is likely the first Tribal entity that entered into a conservation easement with a land trust (Pacific Forest Trust). Additionally, Sanctuary Forest holds a separate easement prohibiting industrial logging on the InterTribal land.
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In early October, Seventh Generation filmed watershed and salmonid stream restoration work conducted collaboratively by InterTribal Sinkyone and State Parks' North Coast Redwoods District. Filming focused on the effects on vegetation and water quality resulting from watershed rehabilitation work conducted in 1992. The effects were compared to archival photos of clearcut logging. Council board members were interviewed about the formation of their unique Tribal conservation consortium which has brought local Tribal members back to the land of their ancestors in a role that is beneficial to the land and
the people.
The second film, Learning from Wisdom of Native Americans, is being produced by a Tokyo-based film company that sent a crew to California in mid-October to conduct on-site filming of the Council's work for a documentary. The film will focus on the Native ecological perspectives and the environmental protection initiatives of the Council and two other Tribal groups, the Seneca of New York and the Diné (Navajo) of the Southwest. The film, which will be broadcast on Japanese satellite television later this year, will focus on the cultural land stewardship efforts of these three North American Tribal groups. It is part of a series of educational films about the land ethic of indigenous peoples throughout the world including the Maori of New Zealand and the Sámi of Northern Europe.
Wailaki Tribal members involved in cultural-ecological restoration efforts at Sinkyone traveled with Council representatives and the filmmakers to restoration sites at Sinkyone. The group examined the Council's work, which in 2005 removed six miles of abandoned logging roads through a heavy-equipment training program for Tribal members funded by a State Water Board grant to the Council. The Council hired Tribal members of Sinkyone, Wailaki, Yuki, Wiyot, Mattole, Bear River, Yurok, Lassik, Pomo, and other Tribal ancestry for the overall four-year watershed restoration and cultural resource monitoring effort which was located in Upper Mattole, tributaries of S. Fork Eel, and Sinkyone coastal watersheds. The watershed rehabilitation project, a collaborative effort between the Council and State Parks, treated more than 50 miles of abandoned logging roads and stream crossings.
Terry Robinson, a Wailaki resident from Garberville and a member of Round Valley Indian Tribes, explained the methodology behind the watershed work that he participated in as a dozer operator. He noted the benefits to water quality and the land's native plant and animal communities. He pointed out how treated slopes were stabilized through the work he and other Tribal members completed, noting the natural regeneration of native plants that are now covering formerly roaded areas. Robinson's son Terry Michael Robinson, who is also a Round Valley Tribal member, was trained on the project as a Native cultural resource monitor and has worked on this and other construction projects in the region to ensure protection for sensitive cultural resources.
The group proceeded south on Usal Road, stopping to film Wolf Creek watershed and the Sally Bell Grove. Round Valley Tribal member Ronald Lincoln, Sr., whose ancestors include the Bell family and Chief Lassik, was involved in initial efforts in the early 1980s to organize Tribal participation in the movement to save the Sally Bell Grove. He reminisced about earlier days at Sinkyone and how meaningful it was for him as a Wailaki person to return to this special place after 25 years. He noted that in the 1980s he and other Wailaki had demanded removal of a sign in the Sinkyone State Park that had erroneously stated the Sinkyone people were extinct. He explained how the Council's work has brought together local Tribal members of various ancestral backgrounds to protect Sinkyone land and reestablish their role as its stewards. Ron offered a prayer song to honor the ancestors and the land, and his powerful voice could be heard echoing through the Grove's old-growth redwoods.
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and State Parks had installed to create scour pools and refugia for young salmonids. The highly regarded partnership between State Parks and the Council took many years to develop, and over the years a number important collaborative projects focusing on the recovery of Sinkyone's cultural ecology have resulted from their partnership.
The group continued down to the Hotel Gulch campsites in Usal, where they were greeted by more than twenty singers and dancers of the Pinoleville Pomo Nation Youth Group, who blessed the land and the people with traditional songs and dances. Their presence that day added to the strength of the Sinkyone movement, which has brought together local Tribal members of many ancestral backgrounds to celebrate their common bond of caring for the land and reviving their cultural connections. The day concluded with a dinner of salmon cooked under the stars by Frankie Esquivel and others. Everyone enjoyed and appreciated the wild Copper River salmon, which was generously donated by fishermen Timothy Metz, a local forester and land restorationist, and Dune Lankard, a Native Athabaskan of the Eagle Clan from the Eyak Nation in the Copper River Delta of Alaska.
For more information, contact the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council at: (707) 468-9500
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TOC for Forest & River News, Winter 2008