Community celebrates a History of Dixon mural by artist Colleen Gnos; mural commissioned by the Dixon Historical Society; image courtesy of the artist.
Every Friday for the past five years, a group of dedicated climate activists has gathered on the corner of 5th and B in Davis to call attention to the climate emergency. One of their colorful, hand-painted signs prophetically asks, “The Climate Is Changing, Why Aren’t We?”
As the young people that first painted these signs come of age, climate change-induced extreme weather events – like the recent Los Angeles fires – are rapidly eclipsing their future. Yet global burning is just one outcome of this unprecedented, man-made crisis.
All of Earth’s life support systems –the oceans, rainforests and wetlands that cycle water and nutrients throughout the biosphere in a living system - are being rapidly disabled by human activity.
Around the world and here in Yolo County, people are demanding not just an urgent response to this systemic crisis but also a just response – one that rectifies persistent inequities by centering the communities who have contributed the least to this planetary breakdown yet are now bearing the brunt of the impacts. This approach is often called a Just Transition.
According to the Climate Justice Alliance, Just Transition is a decision-making framework that:
- advances ecological restoration
- shifts economic control to communities
- relocalizes production and consumption
- restores cultures and traditions and
- drives racial justice and social equity
Just Transitions are bottom-up, home-grown strategies that can bring about a socially and environmentally sustainable future. It’s an evolutionary process that communities are adopting to navigate the changes that are already in motion.
How can we build a Just Transition here in Yolo? Let’s start by taking a closer, honest look at the local history of the land and examine the prevailing beliefs that led us into this hot mess. The YoloSol Collective calls this essential first step “re-storying the Yolo bioregion.”
Wintun Homeland
Less than two hundred years ago, the lands and waterways that encompass the Yolo bioregion were the home of the Patwin-Wintun people. They lived in villages throughout the valley floodplain to the west of the Sacramento River. Exact numbers and locations are largely unknown – erased as a byproduct of genocide. Their economy was based on extensive trading networks that extended their reach for hundreds if not thousands of miles in all directions.
The dominant settler-colonial narrative distorts history by suggesting that prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Sacramento Valley was “untamed wilderness inhabited by primitive hunter-gathers.”
Patwin-Wintun people lived in a highly-evolved, complex nexus of nature and culture. Their land-management practices required intricate knowledge of local, dynamic ecosystems. They navigated dramatic seasonal fluctuations between rain and drought with skill and acumen.
Native people were adept stewards of the land. They applied technologies such as cultural burning that enhanced biodiversity, added fertility to the soil, kept the water clean and healthy and maintained a stable climate for thousands of years without compromising the wellbeing of future generations.
Under their active stewardship, the Yolo bioregion teemed with life. Creeks and tule wetlands were full of otters, beaver, salmon, steelhead, sturgeon and eel. Multitudes of birds and bats filled the skies of the Pacific Flyway while butterflies, dragonflies, native bees and a variety of other insects darted among colorful meadows of Poppies, Golden Fields, Lupine, and Baby Blue Eye flowers, to name a few. Lush riparian forests and fields of native grasses such as Purple Needle Grass supported a diverse array of large mammals including grizzly bears, mountain lions and herds of antelope and elk. The biodiversity of this rich delta region rivaled that of the Serengeti Plains of Africa.
Yolo - the Waiting Place
The Patwin word “Yolo” signifies a place of waiting. Wintun/Maidu culture-bearer, naturalist, and educator Diana Almendariz speculates that Yolo was the area where hunters camped during a certain time of year and waited for herds of pronghorn antelope and tule elk to pass through the valley on their seasonal migration. After a kill, it would have taken time to process the meat and dry it for jerky. So perhaps relatives at home would also be waiting for the hunters to return.
When the California Gold Rush attracted thousands of American settlers to this region in the 1850’s, Patwin-Wintun people and their way of life were targeted for genocide. One of the first laws passed by the new California legislature in 1850 – known as the Indian Indenture Act – made it legal to enslave native people and remove them from their traditional lands, separating families and cultures.
Land management practices that had been fine-tuned over thousands of years, such as cultural burning of oak savannahs and grasslands, were prohibited. Native lands were enclosed and privatized. Waterways were drained and diverted. The loss of cultural and biological diversity was catastrophic. This was a brutal time for Native people and the environment.
Despite the systematic efforts to depossess Native people of their land and culture, Wintun tribes (both federally-recognized and unrecognized), culture-bearers and families are still here tending to their homelands. The land acknowledgement of the Yocha Dehe, Kletsel Dehe and Cachil Dehe Wintun Nation tribes formally recognizes this ongoing relationship:
The Patwin people have remained committed to the stewardship of this land over many centuries. It has been cherished and protected, as elders have instructed the young through generations.
Yolo Just Transitions
As the twinned crisis of climate breakdown and biodiversity loss fueled by Western society threatens our survival, perhaps it’s time to pay close attention to what Native Wintun people have to teach us based on thousands of years of experience stewarding these homelands. The knowledge of how to sustainably manage the land is literally embedded in their DNA.
As explained by Diana Almendariz, “Our people were mound-builders, waterway experts, fire keepers, and naturalists that took care of the land to keep it healthy. We had strict protocols that came from an intricate understanding of the local ecology.”
This complex body of knowledge – often referred to as traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) – is highly-adapatable, iterative and constantly evolving. TEK is well-suited for addressing the contemporary challenges of the climate and environmental crisis – to guide a just transition and help restore ecological balance. As Diana explains, TEK requires first and foremost a more disciplined way of relating to land that does not view nature as an endless source of extraction. She says,
When it comes to understanding and valuing the ways that Native people care for the environment, discipline is key.
As relative newcomers to the Yolo bioregion, non-native people have much to learn. We are fortunate that Native people are still here, sharing, experimenting, expanding and regenerating their age-old knowledge of homeland stewardship. Uprooting racist, anthropocentric settler-colonial narratives that cover up the legacy of the genocide can create space for much-needed healing and equitable partnerships.
“Every time I teach, I heal,” shared Diana during a recent TEK-training for young people.
Yolo Just Transitions are restorative pathways that center attentive, patient and reciprocal relationships with Native Wintun communities. Subsequent blog posts will explore how to apply – with discipline – an ecological Just Transition framework to local decision-making and land use planning here in the Yolo bioregion.
