California’s governor proposes a $100 million plan for tribes to purchase land

            California Gov. Gavin Newsom suggested providing Native American tribes $100 million to acquire and maintain ancestral sites on Friday.

California Governor Gavin Newsom intends to conserve roughly one-third of the state’s land and coastal waters by 2030. The funds would be included in Newsom’s proposed budget of $286.4 billion. According to the state’s Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot, the government is “dedicated to building a framework or a process where tribes decide where these dollars are going.” Aside from purchasing property, tribes in California might use the funds to fund climate change and workforce development projects. “We’ve cut ourselves off from all of the tribal ecological knowledge that we require to repair and care for the lands”. Crowfoot spoke during a meeting of the California Truth & Healing Council, which Newsom formed in 2019 to “clarify the record” of the state’s “troubled relationship with tribes.” He has referred to that aim as a “mandate,” stating that it is critical for California to mitigate the impacts of climate change.