[HN Gopher] Three NorCal Tribes Announce Nation's First Indigeno...
___________________________________________________________________
Three NorCal Tribes Announce Nation's First Indigenous Ocean
Protection Area
Author : genter
Score : 53 points
Date : 2023-09-22 20:12 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lostcoastoutpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (lostcoastoutpost.com)
| gatvol wrote:
| Agree with the ecological preservation objectives, hard disagree
| with handing over of sovereignty, whatever that actually means,to
| a group based on their ethnicity / ancestry.
| hypeit wrote:
| They're indigenous, nothing is being "handed over" it's land
| that they were forced to live on when they were forced of their
| original land in the area. They already have sovereignty.
| arcticbull wrote:
| A lot of people were forced to leave a lot of land all over
| the world. Borders shifted constantly within Europe. People
| were constantly expelled and relocated. Now of course they
| shouldn't have been, but that was a long time ago and we've
| generally agreed not to do that anymore.
|
| Should former Roman land be given to the Italians? Should the
| Louisiana purchase be undone because it was the result of a
| military defeat in the Napoleonic Wars? Should the non-first-
| nations parts of California be returned to the Mexicans
| because it was ceded in the Mexican-American War under the
| Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo? What framework do you propose we
| use to decide which land is worthy of sovereign rule - and
| which isn't? Which groups are worthy of sovereignty, and
| which aren't, and on what basis?
|
| I think all groups should be represented within the
| government and there's no reason to revisit the question of
| sovereignty because there's no framework that makes sense.
| There's no easy place to stop that isn't totally arbitrary.
| rfwhyte wrote:
| To take things a step further, all the various North
| American indigenous groups have been waring, slaving and
| migrating their way across the continent for millennia,
| just like every single other people group on earth for all
| of history, so it's almost certain that whatever indigenous
| "Nation" is claiming a given piece of land "Stole" it from
| some other indigenous "Nation" at some point in the past,
| yet we never hear them talking about returning "their" land
| to those "Rightful owners" do we?
| zopa wrote:
| Tribes were sovereign, signed treaties that enshrined
| sovereignty--within limits,to be sure--and continue to exercise
| that sovereignty. Nothing is being handed over, it's always
| been there.
|
| Interestingly the idea that tribal membership is based on
| ancestry originated with Europeans and (white) Americans, more
| than native tribes. Historically (generalizing wildly), tribal
| membership is about citizenship in a community much more than
| it is about who ones' grandparents were. Blood quotient was a
| US legal concept that reflected the American fondness for
| racial categories. A Navajo friend has Scottish and Arab
| ancestors who'd married into the tribe, just to give an
| example. Or check out _The Unredeemed Captive_, for a practice
| that would make no sense if tribal membership were racial.
|
| Communities often want to continue as communities, in a way
| that's only possible with self-determination. That can land as
| either a left- or a right-flavored interest, depending on who's
| asking and the overall context. But it's too big a part of
| human nature to brush aside.
| krapp wrote:
| Native tribes are and have always been sovereign entities, that
| didn't end with European colonization. The degree to which the
| US government acknowledges this has varied over time,
| obviously, but as recently as the SCOTUS case on the Indian
| Child Welfare Act (Haaland v. Brackeen[0,1]), it has at least
| recognized that sovereignty exists.
|
| [0]https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/haaland-v-
| bracke...
|
| [1]https://www.ncsl.org/state-legislatures-
| news/details/supreme...
| jker wrote:
| A close read of the statement suggests that this is more of a
| feel-good thing and not much to worry about. If those tribes
| get actual sovereignty over those waters, they'll soon find
| them full of Chinese fishing trawlers.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Agree with the ecological preservation objectives, hard
| disagree with handing over of sovereignty, whatever that
| actually means,to a group based on their ethnicity / ancestry.
|
| I'm sure many people in the various tribes object to the
| handing over of _most_ of their sovereignty over to the USA
| based on the guns held to their head (and where land was
| retained, it often being not merely a small subset of their
| land, but often _completely different and worse land_ ) but
| their vigorous excercise of the sovereignty they retain is not
| a "handing over" of anything to them "based on their
| ethnicity", even to the extent that there is a rearrangement of
| sovereign rights between the three relevant sovereigns (state,
| federal, and tribal) such that there is something being handed
| over at all.
| TinkersW wrote:
| I grew up in the area, those shores aren't tribal lands other
| than a few tiny bits. And most of it is already preserved
| shore/ocean, so this just appears to be a land grab attempt.
|
| I agree that this area should be protected, but giving it to a
| few people based on ancestry is ridiculous.
| constantly wrote:
| Out of curiosity how far back are you choosing to go to
| designate something as a tribal land?
| markisus wrote:
| Isn't this how most nations work? If one's parents are
| American, they inherit all the rights due to Americans,
| including the ability to run for political office. This gives
| the descendants of Americans sovereignty over a chunk of land
| in North America known as the United States.
| lacker wrote:
| In the California part, most of this area is already parkland.
| Redwood National & State Park, Del Norte Coast State Park, Tolowa
| Dunes State Park.
|
| The Resighini Tribe is about 40 people, Tolowa Dee'ni is about
| 110 people. The biggest one is Cher-Ae Heights, 130 people. The
| largest tribe in the area is the Yurok, around 3000 people. So
| this is just a small subset of the local indigenous groups making
| this declaration.
|
| These smaller tribes talk about conservation and the environment,
| but their main activity is running this casino:
|
| https://www.funattheheights.com/
|
| I do think it is important to preserve the natural beauty of
| Northern California, but I think the state and national park
| systems are doing a pretty good job of it, and I wouldn't want to
| turn the parks over to some local casino operators.
| zopa wrote:
| https://archive.ph/pDyh7
| pphysch wrote:
| Does this mean the tribes are basically (unilaterally?) claiming
| economic rights over these waters?
|
| It's not clear from this article if this statement is explicitly
| supported by the CA gov.
| dheera wrote:
| I mean, they were here before the CA gov, it's just that the CA
| gov has more firepower, tasers, and handcuffs, so we listen to
| them.
|
| Otherwise I wish the natives would give us some tax cuts too.
| pphysch wrote:
| I'm not taking sides, I'm trying to understand the politics
| of this announcement.
| peyton wrote:
| I think they run the casinos up around Redwood.
| genter wrote:
| I'm trying to understand it too.
|
| > We do not seek the permission of other governments
|
| > these waters are also claimed by the State of California,
| who through its California Natural Resources Agency
| Pathways to 30x30: Accelerating Conservation of
| California's Nature Report, support the concept of
| Indigenous Marine Stewardship
|
| So I guess the State of California theoretically supports
| IMSAs, but does the state support this one? Does the state
| need to approve an IMSA for it to be official? Or are
| tribes independent enough that they can just declare it?
| jker wrote:
| The statement notes that the waters are "also claimed" by the
| California state government, which "supports the concept" of
| tribal stewardship. This whole thing seems pretty
| insubstantial.
| happytiger wrote:
| Good question. I have no idea. I doubt there is precedent!
|
| And I can't wait to see how this gets legally tested -- native
| rights haven't been properly respected and these kinds if tests
| are deeply important in restoring rightful sovereignty and
| tribal agency to our hosts and neighbors.
|
| I'm chuckling as I imagine they're going to do a better job of
| protecting and managing the Earth than the government of
| California and Oregon have done over the last 150 odd years.
| redavni wrote:
| "We do not seek the permission of other governments and can no
| longer wait to act to preserve and protect this culturally and
| ecologically important place"
|
| This is SOP for California politics. CA jurisdictions have been
| ceding territory to Indian tribes for a while. This is purely
| an economically motivated cash grab layered under miles of
| politically correct double-speak. There is an indian tribe in
| Montana that has a massive coal mine that wanted to run a rail
| line to a port through the area that was shut down last year.
| This is possibly another strategy to do the same thing.
| genter wrote:
| I don't know what economic value this part of the ocean has.
| There aren't any fish left. We're currently in the planning
| stage of a wind farm here, but that's in deeper water outside
| of this zone.
| zopa wrote:
| Sure but also;
|
| > and be it further resolved, these waters are also claimed
| by the State of California, who through its California
| Natural Resources Agency Pathways to 30x30: Accelerating
| Conservation of California's Nature Report, support the
| concept of Indigenous Marine Stewardship
|
| Do you have any evidence pointing towards this being a money
| grab? That's a serious accusation.
| genter wrote:
| Note that this includes the mouth of the Klamath River, which is
| currently undergoing a major restoration project:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37338753
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-09-22 23:00 UTC)