| Approximately the southwestern third of the proposed Siskiyou Crest National Monument overlaps with the northern portion of the ancestral territory of the Native American Karuk Tribe of the mid-Klamath River. The Karuk are a federally recognized tribe, with offices in Yreka, Happy Camp, and Orleans, California, but they do not have any officially ceded land or a reservation. They do have a robust tribal government and a well-developed Department of Natural Resources (DNR), which together play a significant role not only in internal tribal governance but also in decisions affecting the area’s natural resources. Regional salmon recovery, native plant protection, returning fire to the ecosystem, and federal road decommissioning and maintenance efforts are but a few of the ecological conservation priorities of the Karuk Tribe.
The mission of the Karuk Department of Natural Resources is to protect, promote, and preserve the cultural/natural resources and ecological processes upon which the Karuk People depend. DNR staff work in conjunction with federal and state agency personnel to ensure that the integrity of natural ecosystem processes and traditional values are incorporated into current and future management strategies within their area of influence.
The DNR has further articulated the tribe’s land management philosophy in a document titled “Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources Eco-Cultural Resources Management Plan: An integrated approach to adaptive problem solving, in the interest of managing the restoration of balanced ecological processes utilizing Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) supported by Western Science.” A draft of this proposal can be downloaded at: http://karuk.us/dnr/index.php
The management priorities the Karuk advocate for in their Eco-Cultural Resources Management Plan are firmly in keeping with the principles of conservation biology and serve as a guiding template in development of additional protective and restorative designations for the Siskiyou Crest. They also provide guidance for how conservation efforts can include a place for people the ecosystem, allowing for hunting and gathering, the active use of fire in the ecosystem, and recognizing the importance of intact ecosystems for traditional ceremonial practices.
We propose the creation of a Karuk Eco-Cultural Resource Area designation within the new monument that acknowledges the ancestral relationship of the Karuk people to the southwest portion of the monument and provides the tribe with a greater degree of participation and management authority in accordance with the restoration and conservation principles articulated in the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources Eco-Cultural Resources Management Plan.
Click Here to view a synopsis of proposed Goals and Objectives guiding management for this special
Eco-Cultural Resource Area. Designating language would also clarify and simplify tribal access for ceremonial and traditional practices such as non-commercial forest crop gathering and the formal consulting role of the Tribe in land management decisions. The designated Eco-Cultural Resource Area would likely be a sub-unit of the National Monument.
KS Wild is in communication with the Karuk Tribe in the hope that we can establish a
special designation on this portion of the monument that will incorporate their management vision and codify their rights for traditional uses across this territory. While there exist complex legal and political challenges to negotiate, this element of the proposed monument represents an auspicious and nearly unprecedented collaborative effort.
PDF of map
Public release May 2006:
Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources Eco-Cultural Resources Management Plan: An integrated approach to adaptive problem solving, in the interest of managing the restoration of balanced ecological processes utilizing Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) supported by Western Science
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