Pomo Land Back LEGAL FUND

The Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians asks for your financial support to fund a lawsuit and to support legislation to protect Sacred Sites and the forest currently being commercially logged in Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF), which is located in the Tribe’s Pomo Homelands.

To date, the Tribe and the Coalition to Save Jackson have been working for two years to stop the commercial logging and associated road building and herbicide operations in JDSF. The efforts have been largely successful due to Direct Action in the woods; the negotiations entered into by the Tribe with the State of California and the countless actions of citizens and groups like rallies, protests, petitions, and letter writing.

These actions have held off almost all logging operations for two years on five Timber Harvest Plans, forced Calfire to authorize no new Timber Harvest plans in 2022, forced a revision of the forest management plan several years early, and begun Tribal Equal Co-Management negotiations for JDSF with the State of California that will impact Equal Co-Management around the entire state. This is a huge accomplishment as JDSF is nearly 50,000 acres and is the largest State Forest in California!

However, Calfire recently went back on their promise to the Tribe to pause logging operations while the Equal Co-Management negotiations are underway. This signals a new phase of the campaign, and we need your support to initiate a lawsuit right away.

This lawsuit will be targeting Calfire’s desecration of Pomo and Coast Yuki Sacred Sites and cultural resources in JDSF, where Calfire has build roads and used herbicides on sacred plants for many decades, even going against their own internal Betts report study which declared more than a decade ago that logging operations must cease until a comprehensive archaeological study is completed.

This lawsuit will challenge Calfire’s current practices as they violate the AB 52 amendments to the California Environmental Quality Act. The law states that Tribes have rights to due process and Cultural Sites and resources must be protected from harms by State activities. Also, in 2020 Governor Newsom issued a little-publicized directive to state agencies to pursue co-management with Tribes, and the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians is poised in this campaign to actualize that state policy for all Tribe statewide.

With your support, a team of Federal Indian lawyers will be hired by the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians to enforce Tribal Sovereignty rights and protect Sacred Sites, culturally valuable species, and force the state to complete negotiations for Equal Co-Management of JDSF with the Tribe.

Further details on the plan for funds raised are in this fundraising prospectus.

Additional background info on the entire campaign is available here.

You can follow the progress of this campaign on www.pomolandback.com, www.savejackson.org, and on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Pomo-Land-Back-108979178554532/

Thank you for your support, please reach out to SURJ Mendo Coast, an ally of the Tribe, with any questions:

[email redacted]