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California's Yurok Tribe Gets Back Ancestral Lands that Were Taken over 120 Years Ago
- The Yurok Tribe regained 47,000 acres of ancestral land in Northern California in 2024, including the Blue Creek watershed near the Klamath River.
- The land return followed two decades of advocacy involving the Yurok Tribe and the nonprofit Western Rivers Conservancy, alongside recent dam removals on the Klamath River.
- The land, which the tribe lost mostly during the California gold rush, is vital as a salmon sanctuary, community forest, and cultural fishing and prayer area.
- Chairman Joseph James expressed deep emotion about the return of the tribe’s ancestral lands, while more than 17,000 acres were purchased as part of a $56 million acquisition.
- The transfer doubles tribal holdings and supports ecosystem restoration, emphasizing Indigenous stewardship as key to sustainable conservation in the Klamath Basin.
60 Articles
60 Articles
Tribe gets back Klamath River ancestral lands after 120 years
Roughly 73 square miles of homelands have been returned to the Yurok. Completion of the land-back conservation deal along the lower Klamath River — a partnership with Western Rivers Conservancy and other environmental groups — is being called the largest in California history.
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Former dam property along White Salmon River to be sold to Yakama Nation
Land along the White Salmon River, previously owned by the utility PacifiCorp for the Condit Dam, is on track to be sold to the Yakama Nation. The sale is being coordinated by the Conservation Fund, a national nonprofit that announced this week it had purchased the property from PacifiCorp. The 172 acres of ancestral Yakama territory includes forested buffers along the river and areas previously submerged by then-Northwestern Lake, a reservoir a…
‘This project is enormous’: Yurok land back project largest in California history
This week the Yurok Tribe and the Western Rivers Conservancy, in conjunction with the California Wildlife Conservation Board and the California State Coastal Conservancy, announced that they had completed the largest land back project in California history. 14,968 acres conveyed by the WRC to the Yurok Tribe on May 30 marked the final step in a more than two-decade long, 47,097-acre, $56 million land transfer. The 73-square-mile project, over th…
Yurok Tribe more than doubles land holdings with new conservation deal
Western Rivers Conservancy and the Yurok Tribe have completed California's largest "land back" deal, according to Western Rivers Conservancy. The 73 square miles along the lower Klamath River are now managed by the Yurok Tribe as the Blue Creek Salmon Sanctuary and Yurok Tribal Community Forest.
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