Dont forget Newsome wanting to give $100M+ to tribes to buy back 'ancestral land' despite multiple groups claiming ancestry. Sounds like a money grab to me
Newsom…
> wanting to give $100M+ to tribes to buy back ‘ancestral land’
…proposing, and the legislature establishing, a $101M grant program for tribes to carry out “multi-benefit nature-based solutions projects located within the state of California.” [0]
It is not solely or primarily for acquiring land, and to the extent land is acquired, it may or may not be ancestral land. (There is a separate and earlier deadline within the program for grants applications for up to $25M of “Time-Sensitive Shovel Ready Ancestral Land Return Projects” for projects that meet that description and are already partially funded and which also meet the other requirements of the program.)
> despite multiple groups claiming ancestry.
To the extent projects under the grant program are ancestral land return projects, and are in “shared ancestral territority”, there is explicit approval priority for those which “will be jointly owned and/or managed by inter-tribal consortium, tribal conservation district, or partnership”.
[0] Program homepage: https://resources.ca.gov/Initiatives/Tribalaffairs/Tribal-Na...
I’m asking, as gently as I know how, if there’s anything here besides “because they’re Indians.” Because that’s not a very good reason.
Its not a proposal, it is a program established by law and which the first deadline for the early round of grants has already passed.
> Does it even involve the same tribes?
Potentially, since the grant program is open to all California tribes, whether or not federally recognized.
The joint declaration here could plausibly be a foundation for the tribes to establish one or more projects within the declared protected area and apply for grants to carry them out, so it could be directly related.