The cold, crystalline waters of Blue Creek — a refuge for salmon and a place of cultural importance to the Yurok Tribe — cut through bedrock and over tumbled-smooth gray stones until they empty into the Klamath River in Northern California. Last summer, 14,000 acres encompassing the Blue Creek watershed were returned to the tribe. This transfer concluded the last phase of the largest tribal land return in California history, amounting to 47,100 acres of land previously used by timber companies. Twenty-three years in the making, it was achieved in partnership with Western Rivers Conservancy, which bought the land in phases and turned it over to the Yurok Tribe. The return more than doubles current landholdings for the tribe, which was dispossessed of more than 90% of its ancestral lands by colonizers.
“The impact of this project is enormous,” said Yurok Tribal Chairman Joseph L. James. “We are forging a sustainable future for the fish, forests and our people that honors both ecological integrity and our cultural heritage.”
The Blue Creek land return was one of multiple recent returns in the Western U.S. as tribal nations work to regain their ancestral lands. The dramatic political shifts at the federal level over the past year have highlighted the importance of state action in achieving the LandBack movement’s goals. In California, for example, the state played a major role in providing funding for the roughly 32,000 acres of land returned to four tribal nations around the state in the last year, including Blue Creek.
“Restoring tribal lands is an acknowledgment of a harmful history of dispossession, a demonstration of accountability, and a commitment to a better future,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement to High Country News. “We will not forget our dark past, but we can write a brighter future by healing deep wounds and rebuilding trust across California.”
“We are forging a sustainable future for the fish, forests and our people that honors both ecological integrity and our cultural heritage.”
The state’s support for land return stems from Newsom’s acknowledgement and apology in 2019 for the historic wrongs done to tribal nations, as well as California’s efforts to meet its climate goals and protect 30% of its land for conservation by 2030.
California has helped fund other land returns, including nearly 900 acres bordering Yosemite National Park that were returned to the Southern Sierra Miwuk Tribe in December. In October, the Tule River Indian Tribe reclaimed 17,030 acres in the Central Valley, where the tribe is also working with the state to reintroduce tule elk.
And in November, the state approved financial support that would assist the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California in reacquiring 10,274 acres of former ranchland in the Northern Sierra Nevada. “Wá·šiw people were once forcefully removed from these lands,” said Tribal Chairman Serrell Smokey. “Now the land is calling the Washoe people home, and we are answering that call.”
Land returns also happened elsewhere in the West. In North Dakota, the Spirit Lake Nation welcomed the return of 680 acres located in the White Horse Hill National Game Preserve. Since the 1950s, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had used the property for hay production to support buffalo populations at White Horse Hill, though not during the past decade. The returned land, which lies within the reservation’s original boundaries, is home to native plants the tribe will work to preserve while also exploring the property’s potential for economic development.
The NANA Regional Corporation, an Alaska Native corporation comprising 11 villages in Northwest Alaska, received nearly 28,000 acres from the Department of the Interior. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said this will help further resource development in Alaska, though the land transfer actually began with the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. Since then, over 700,000 acres have been returned to Alaska Natives. President Donald Trump also signed the Alaska Native Village Municipal Lands Restoration Act, which removes a requirement that some land be held in trust by the state government for a future village corporation. There have been no new village corporations in decades, however, and previously unused land can now be used by existing village corporations.
“Restoring tribal lands is an acknowledgment of a harmful history of dispossession, a demonstration of accountability, and a commitment to a better future.”
LandBack is about more than returning land; it’s also about preserving places that have major historical, cultural and spiritual significance to communities. In the Southwest, some tribes and climate advocates are continuing to work to protect important areas from extraction, despite the Trump administration’s determination to ramp up domestic energy and resource development.
Oak Flat, an area sacred to the San Carlos Apache Tribe of southern Arizona, remains under threat by a large-scale copper-mining effort. Newly elected Rep. Adelita Grijalva introduced the Save Oak Flat from Foreign Mining Act as her first piece of legislation. The proposed bill, which was first introduced by her late father, Raúl Grijalva, would repeal a land swap sought by foreign mining corporations that want to extract copper and other materials from the area. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case from the nonprofit advocacy group Apache Stronghold arguing that the land transfer violated Indigenous religious rights and treaty obligations.
Meanwhile, New Mexico Pueblo tribal leaders continue to work to preserve Chaco Canyon from further gas and oil development. The Biden administration enacted a 10-mile buffer zone around Chaco Culture National Historical Park where development was prohibited. But the Navajo Nation sued the federal government earlier this year, saying that the Biden administration failed to properly consult with the tribe and that the buffer zone should be revoked because it negatively impacted local residents who rely on oil and gas royalties from the area. New Mexico federal legislators — urging Burgum to conduct proper tribal consultation and community outreach — reintroduced legislation to make the buffer zone permanent, but the federal government is now considering a full revocation.
We welcome reader letters. Email High Country News at editor@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.
This article appeared in the February 2026 print edition of the magazine with the headline “Advances in LandBack.”
