AMLT Newsletter — Amah Mutsun Land Trust

AMLT’s Newsletter!

AMLT releases a electronic newsletter that is distributed through email and placed on our website. These newsletters include opening statements from Chairman Lopez, our Executive Director, and highlight some of the recent projects and other initiatives of AMLT. If you would like to be added to the mailing list, please fill out the form here, or send an email to info@amahmutsun.org asking to be added to the mailing list.

2024 Winter Solstice Newsletter

Letter from Chairman Lopez, AMLT Board President

By Valentin Lopez, President of AMLT and Tribal Chairman

Dear Friends,

I’m happy to report that Amah Mutsun Land Trust will be adding six to eight new Native Stewards to our staff starting in February! They will be joining our Native Stewardships Corps program which also begins again this Spring. This will increase our capacity to continue working on our cultural burning program, plant propagation program, ocean and coastal program, cultural resource program and more. We are excited to reinstate our stewardship program and proud to welcome these new Native Stewards.

I’d like to share a little background on our Native Stewardship Corps program...continue reading.

Restoring Native Coastal Prairie at Quiroste Valley Cultural Preserve

By Aylara Odekova, AMLT Native Plant Program Manager

One of the biggest highlights this year was the final site visit from one of the Native Plant Program funders, the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA), to close out Amah Mutsun Land Trust’s Collaborative Restoration of an Indigenous Cultural Landscape at Quiroste Valley Cultural Preserve grant...Amah Mutsun Land Trust (AMLT) began work on this project in 2020 with the goal of restoring threatened native coastal prairie vegetation communities, reducing fire hazards, and educating the public on Indigenous stewardship practices. This project followed over a decade of collaborative historical ecological and archaeological research that was conducted at Quiroste Cultural Preserve (QVCP) in Año Nuevo by the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, AMLT, California State Parks, and researchers from UC Berkeley...continue reading.

An Update From Little Arthur Creek

By Alec Apodaca, AMLT Cultural Resources Program Manager

For countless generations, Amah Mutsun ancestors witnessed and stewarded fish runs. The creeks that drain from the eastern foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains creates a vast area of streams, grasslands, and oak savannah that was once the known as the territory of the Unijiama, or people of the fish. The series of spring-fed streams were a source of life for Amah Mutsun ancestors who lived in and stewarded the region, as well as numerous animal relatives who drank and swam in those creeks for countless millennia. Today, a series of dams choke the path for fish returning to those waters. Amah Mutsun Land Trust is joining the number of Tribes and First Nations to restore the waters and fish within their ancestral territory...continue reading.

Notes from the Native Stewardship Corps

AMLT Native Stewards Esak Ordoñez, Zechariah Ordoñez, and Jacob Girouard joined the Central Coast Prescribed Burn Association, CA State Parks, Tamien Nation and others for a series of prescribed burns this past December.

Please enjoy photos and reflections from this week of burning! All photos courtesy of Jacob Girouard, AMLT Native Steward and Tribal Member.

An Explainer of the Betabel Lawsuit and AMLT's Sacred Lands Defense Efforts

By Athena Hernandez, AMLT General Counsel and Tribal Member

As part of its Sacred Lands Defense efforts to protect cultural sites and resources that may be impacted by development, AMLT participates in AB 52 consultation on proposed development projects existing in the ancestral territory of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band (AMTB). The Betabel lawsuit originated from an AB 52 consultation on the Betabel Commercial Project, a proposed roadside attraction along HWY 101 on lands that are sacred to the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band. AMLT had formally requested AB 52 consultation on the Betabel Commercial Project and as part of the consultation process, we requested that an ethnographic study and integrated cultural resources survey be conducted…continue reading.