Getting the facts right on tribal land return

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OPINION—For the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation, Yan’-daa-k’vt is the center of our world—where our people have gathered, prayed and lived since time immemorial. It is a living landscape that continues to shape our culture, our identity and our responsibility to care for the land.

Today, that same place is known as Tolowa Dunes State Park.

Assembly Bill 2356 (Ramos) was introduced to create a clear path to return this sacred land to the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation. While the bill has been paused to allow for additional local engagement, the effort is far from over.

Facts around this issue can easily be mischaracterized, so let us be clear. This effort is not about taking land away from the public. It is not about dismantling California’s state park system. And it is not about development.

It is about stewardship, environmental protection and doing what is right.

For decades, the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation has worked alongside the state to care for this land—at times, stepping in when the state lacked the resources to maintain the park. Tribal leaders have led restoration efforts, protected cultural sites, repaired infrastructure and helped manage the landscape using both environmental science and Indigenous knowledge.

This is not a hypothetical model of stewardship. It is already happening.

AB 2356 recognizes that reality. It establishes a clear, legally binding framework to return the land while ensuring it remains protected in perpetuity. It requires continued public access consistent with current use, permanently prohibits commercial development and ensures the land can never be sold or mortgaged.

Those protections are not vague. They are written into the bill. Yet too often, the discussion suggests these safeguards do not exist. They do.

This is not a tradeoff between public access and tribal stewardship. It is an opportunity to strengthen both while advancing more just and effective land management. As Sierra Club California noted in its support, returning stewardship to the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation will strengthen environmental protection, honor tribal sovereignty, and promote more inclusive stewardship of California’s natural resources.

It is also important to understand what this bill does not do. It is not a sweeping policy change. It is a specific solution for a specific place with a unique and documented history. The Legislature made that clear by treating AB 2356 as a special statute tied to the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation’s dispossession from these lands. Any future proposal would require its own bill, its own findings and its own vote.

Yan’-daa-k’vt is the center of the Tolowa Dee-ni’ world. There is no substitute for that. For generations, the nation has asked for its return, all the while continuing to show up to protect the land.

That is not theoretical stewardship. It is a lived responsibility.

So, when questions arise about who should manage this land, the answer is straightforward.

The Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation has already shown what that stewardship looks like. AB 2356 offers California a path forward grounded in that reality—one that protects the land, preserves public access and respects tribal sovereignty.

Returning Yan’-daa-k’vt is not just about correcting the past. It is about protecting the future.

Debbie Boardman is chairperson of the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation, a federally recognized tribe based in Del Norte County.

Mercedes Macias is senior policy strategist for Sierra Club California, where she works on advancing environmental protection and equitable land use policies across the state.