At a celebration at the Chabot Space & Science Center in December, The City of Oakland and Sogorea Te’ Land Trust made it official: around five acres of land in the Oakland hills were returned to Indigenous stewardship, under the care of the Indigenous women-led organization.
The city previously announced the idea last fall, which had been in the works for many years. The city council later passed the motion to create a cultural conservation easement in what was known as Sequoia Point, now called Rinihmu Pulte’irekne, which means “above the red ochre” in the Chochenyo language.
At the December 13, 2022 evening celebration, with former Mayor Libby Schaaf and city staff in attendance, where Corrina Gould, tribal spokesperson for the Confederated Villages of Lisjan and co-founder of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, signed the cultural conservation easement agreement which puts the land under the care of the organization in perpetuity.
Plans include environmental restoration, plant gathering, public education, and creating a ceremonial space.
Momo Chang is a freelance journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the Oakland Voices Co-Director. Her work focuses on healthcare, immigration, education, Asian American communities, food and culture. She is a former staff writer at the Oakland Tribune. Momo has received journalism awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for investigative reporting and the Asian American Journalists Association, among others. Her work has appeared in the East Bay Express, San Francisco Chronicle, Wired, and The New York Times. Momo is primarily a print journalist who also produces audio and visual stories for documentary film and radio. She is a Senior Contributing Editor for Hyphen and formerly the Content Manager at the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM).
I love that you covered this Momo. I’m in the works of writing something about this also