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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 2013)
Smoke Signals 5 AUGUST 1,2013 Ynbe ceDelbiraties retiiu off ceded Dairods yt -) IW'.I L V t J ; ! Photos by Michelle Alaimo Tribal Council Secretary Toby McClary, left, and Tribal Council member Cheryle A. Kennedy, right, gift a Pendleton blanket to Matt Benotsch, Willamette Valley stewardship coordinator for The Nature Conservancy, during the Ceded Lands Celebration held in the Governance Center Atrium on Wednesday, July 17. The event recognized the acquisitions of the Rattlesnake Butte and Chahalpam properties by the Tribe. By Ron Karten Smoke Signals staff writer On Wednesday, July 17, the Tribe rolled out stewardship agreements that effectively place two areas of the Tribe's ceded lands back under Tribal control. "This has been a long, long ef fort," said Tribal Council member Cheryle A. Kennedy during the celebration held in the Governance Center Atrium. The first, Rattlesnake Butte, con tains 100 acres of prairie habitat and oak savannah and was cel ebrated last September in nearby Junction City. This success, that at the time was called "monumen tal," returned for a bow last month with the Tribe's latest stewardship agreement. The Chahalpam property is lo cated on the North Santiam River in Marion County, just downstream from Stayton in Santiam Kalapuya territory. Though much of the 338-acre site has been farmed for decades, about a third of it remains riparian gallery forest, as it has for millennia. Purchased with Bonneville Power Administration funding, with as sistance from the Western Rivers Conservancy, the property is val ued at more than $3.5 million. The Tribe also received several hundred thousand dollars of Bonneville Power funding for managing the property. "Equally, if not more significant," said Land and Culture Depart ment Manager Jan Looking Wolf Reibach, "is the value of recovering our historical treaty lands for the Tribal membership. This acquisi tion will forever protect important natural and cultural resources in our ceded lands." "Chahalpam," meaning "Place of the Santiam Kalapuya," is within the ancestral homelands of one of the Grand Ronde Tribe's anteced ent bands. Another feature of the land is more than a mile of North Santiam River frontage. The conservation easement grant ed to Bonneville Power by the Tribe guarantees that the Tribe will man age the property in perpetuity for fish, wildlife and other conservation values, with an emphasis on re storing the land to a more natural, indigenous condition. Species benefiting from this Tribal acquisition include spring Chinook salmon, winter steelhead, Pacific lamprey, Oregon chub and red-legged frogs, and among trees, the western red cedar and Oregon ash. Next, the Tribe will draft and implement a management plan to convert agricultural fields and an existing home site into Native habi tat. Natural Resources will take the lead in maintaining the lands. The Tribe's conservation hold ings in its ceded lands now total 435 acres, said Reibach, and "this total will certainly increase as the Tribe pursues further conservation projects in its ceded lands. "We've been viewed as a defeated people with no rights," said Kenne dy, "but we always knew about our homelands. Others did not. People continue to think they have a right to take land that is not theirs." The Tribe ceded millions of acres, Kennedy said, and "in those ceded lands, the Tribe had control over burial sites, rivers where we fished and lands where we hunted." The Tribe's strategic plan, she said, envisions the Tribe continu ing "to bring back land rich with our culture." "For thousands of years," said Michael Karnosh, the Tribe's Ceded Lands program manager and staff lead for this project, "Tribes lived quite prosperously on traditional lands. They did not take from it. They (continually) restored it. There was actually a surplus of food from these lands that the Tribes used for trade." As Native Americans suffered over the last 150 years, Karnosh said, so did habitats. Ninety-eight percent of traditional oak savan nahs have been replaced with farms and buildings. 'The Willamette Valley," he said, "is the fourth most endangered oak savannah in the world. Third World countries are doing a better (preser vation) job than this nation is." The Ceded Lands Acquisition Team includes Reibach, Karnosh, staff attorneys Ryan Sudbury and Jennifer Biesack, Natural Resourc es Department Manager Michael Wilson, Hydrosystem Compliance Specialist Lawrence Schwabe and Tribal Realty Specialist Teresa Clay. The Tribe's Public Affairs and Legal departments also were indispensable to the success of this effort. Kennedy called the Legal Depart ment's efforts "the mainstay behind this great effort," and also credited Karnosh, Tribal Historian David Lewis and Cultural Protection Pro gram Manager Eirik Thorsgard. Karnosh also credited Tribal Engineering Manager Jesse White, Facilities Maintenance Supervisor Tyson Mercier, Cultural Education and Outreach Program Manager Kathy Cole and Volker Mell, Tribal GIS coordinator. Also making this possible was a large coordinated effort by the Tribe's Ceded Lands and Cultural Protection programs along with many other agencies public and nonprofit: the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Land Man agement, U.S. Forest Service, Or egon Department of Environmental Quality, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, North Santiam Watershed Council, Nature Conser vancy and Tribal Council. Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's Wildlife Mitigation Pro gram funded the project through Bonneville Power Administration. "(The program) really relies on our partners in the Willamette Valley to make the program work," said Bernadette Graham-Hudson, Pro gram and Policy analyst for Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. "Today is about hope," said Kar nosh. B , , "" "" ! cv Michael Karnosh, Tribal Ceded Lands program manager, speaks during the Ceded Lands Celebration held in the Governance Center Atrium on Wednesday, July 1 7. Youth Center seeks volunteers The Tina Miller Community Center Thrift Store, 110 B. St., Willamina, helps fund the after-school and weekend youth community center located in the old Willamina High School gym. The thrift store is seeking volunteers who can help run the store, in ad dition to donated items and customers. The store accepts clothes, books, knickknacks, etc., as donations. It is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and closed Sunday and Monday. Donations also can be left at the Wildwood Hotel and Restaurant in Willamina. For more information on volunteering, call 503-876-7897. The youth center and thrift store are nonprofit and 100 percent self sustaining and volunteer-run. H KOMI; Miftttia 'V Htll j.'j 1- . t V . ; ';(' Jt-4 ' .t It- .' 4 V J - V 4 i V fc. ' ri i .ww,uv.,.,ue..u . , stop by and tind out more about becoming a toster parenu 4, I , ST I if H I .:l I ill ; v -f:t m mmmJ JSA; Sm mm mm nl
