Tribal Partnership

The Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority is partnering with local Tribes as they work to reconnect with their ancestral and traditional lands, to promote their role as partners in land stewardship, and to find shared solutions to today's conservation challenges for future generations.

ABOUT

We recognize the historic and enduring relationship that exists between Indigenous Peoples and the land of this region that comprises the Open Space Authority's jurisdiction. Despite years of targeted violence and erasure, local Tribes have endured to protect their language, culture, and heritage. Tribes continue to serve as stewards of land and culture and seek access to lands that represent historic territories.

We are honored and humbled to work with local Tribes, and our work to grow and develop these important partnerships is ongoing. The Authority is committed to listening, learning, and working together to protect open spaces and wildlife, advance land stewardship, manage and protect cultural resources, safeguard water resources, provide environmental education, and combat climate change for the benefit of all.

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT STATEMENT:


The Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority carries out its mission to protect, restore, and connect people to the land in the Santa Clara Valley and surrounding Santa Cruz and Diablo Range Mountains. These lands are the ancestral and unceded territories of the Awaswas-, Chochenyo-, Mutsun-, Thámien-, and Yokut-speaking peoples. As a public agency, it is our responsibility to acknowledge the historically documented violence and injustice that occurred as local Tribal groups were forcibly displaced from these lands.

We also acknowledge and respect Indigenous Peoples of this place, including the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band and the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area, who work today to restore and protect their culture and connect to the land.

  

GOALS:

Our Tribal partners are actively engaged in conservation work and we have many shared goals for land, wildlife, and natural resources. Through their active research programs, Tribes play an important role as land management partners by employing traditional ecological knowledge to sustainably manage open spaces and to help address climate challenges such as fire, flood, and drought.  

The Open Space Authority acknowledges our responsibility to:
 

RESOURCES: