InterTribal Sinkyone Wildernes Council
PO Box 1523

ukiah, ca 95482

(707) 463-6745

http://www.treesfoundation.org/affiliates/specific-22

InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council

The InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council is a nonprofit consortium of ten sovereign, federally-recognized California Indian tribes engaged in cultural land conservation, Native stewardship, habitat restoration, and education within the aboriginal Sinkyone Indian tribal territory, which encompasses portions of southern Humboldt and northern Mendocino counties including the Garberville-Redway area. The Council's member tribes all retain historic and cultural ties to the Sinkyone tribal territory.

The Council may be the best-known example of intertribal Indian land conservation in the U .S. It was formed in 1986 to protect threatened Sinkyone coastal redwoods from further clearcut logging, and to return traditional tribal stewardship to this land. In 1997 the Council purchased 3,845 acres for the first-ever InterTribal Wilderness area. This land is permanently protected through conservation easements. The Council conducts its work in collaboration with a wide variety of project partners, including local tribes, Sanctuary Forest, Pacific Forest Trust, The Trust for Public Land, Trees Foundation, California State Parks, the State Coastal Conservancy, and others.

The Council’s InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness adjoins the 7,250-acre Sinkyone Wilderness State Park, where the Council is engaged in collaborative cultural-ecological conservation projects with California State Parks. The Council assisted with the Sinkyone State Park’s Watershed Rehabilitation Project by helping to remove more than 50 miles of abandoned logging roads and streams, which led to the Park’s recognition as an officially designated State Wilderness in November 2006. The effects of the Sinkyone Watershed Rehabilitation Project include dramatic reductions in sediment deliveries to Sinkyone stream and ocean waters, thereby significantly improving salmonid and other species’ habitats. The Council also shares a 12-mile common boundary with its neighbor to the east, Redwood Forest Foundation, Inc., which in June 2007 purchased the 50,635-acre Usal Redwood Forest.

Although the InterTribal Wilderness is not open to the general public, the Council plans to allow limited access for the public at two camping areas and on three public hiking trails connecting to the Lost Coast Trail in the adjacent State Park, located to the west of the InterTribal land. These limited public access features are anticipated to open by 2010.

To find out more, visit InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council at its page on the Trees Foundation website at: http://www.treesfoundation.org/affiliates/specific-22

Contact information:

InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council

P.O. Box 1523 Ukiah, CA 95482. Phone: (707) 463-6745.