California State Parks, Miwok tribe agree to pact that preserves parks on ancestral lands

A new pact between California State Parks and the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians is being touted as a plan to ensure parks on the band’s ancestral lands are preserved and protected.

State Parks and Miwok leaders signed the five-year agreement Monday in West Sacramento, at what will soon be the state’s California Indian Center.

With the signing, California State Parks and the Shingle Springs band formalized how the two will work together to protect, preserve and interpret parks on ancestral Miwok homelands.

“Our story is like many here in California,” said Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians Chairwoman Regina Cuellar, in a statement announcing the accord. “It makes the importance of the (agreement) we are signing here today all the more critical to not only securing the future well-being of the ancestral lands we are engaged in stewarding and the revitalization of sacred practices, but to us as a people and our identity as a tribe.”

Among other things, that means applying traditional methods of native plant landscaping into its land management practices, said California State Parks director Armando Quintero, in a way that “illuminates the past as present and reveals California as a world of many rich cultures.”

The pact also commits the two to blend traditional ecological knowledge into efforts to protect cultural and natural resources; work together on art projects; and monitor and protect cultural resources.

The new pact is the latest in a growing list of collaborations between the state agency and tribe, including the new Sutter’s Fort interpretation master plan and Folsom Auburn Road Bridge Mural Project.