California unveiled a plan Tuesday to bring at least 7.5 million acres of land and coastal waters under the care of Indigenous tribes. … The new policy, set by the California Natural Resources Agency, aims to start healing the harm caused by the state’s actions to bar tribes from their homelands and criminalize their cultural and land management practices. These actions not only harmed Native communities, whose cultures and ways of life are intimately tied to the plants, animals and landscape of their homelands, but also caused well-documented harm to ecosystems through the loss of biodiversity, takeover of invasive species, degradation of water quality and increase in wildfire risk.

Other tribal land and water news:

• KTAR (Phoenix): Tribal water rights deal needs $5B in federal funding, leaders say
• Truthout: Growing presence of AI data centers prompts debate on Native lands
• California Natural Resources Agency: News release: Landmark policy to expand tribal stewardship for at least 7.5 million acres in California