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Initiative to Protect & Conserve Tc’ibéétookwot Watershed

Supported by The Alliance to Protect Tc’ibéétookwot

Attitudes of disrespect and policies of violence toward Nature and its original guardians, the Indigenous Peoples of this redwood region, nearly annihilated the area’s Tribes and its rich abundance of plant and animal species, including wild coho salmon. For countless generations, the region’s forests and streams have been—and today remain—home to the Tribes, the salmon, and others who have survived these severe impacts. We now have the opportunity to take a much-needed step toward addressing these harms through a culturally informed environmental justice effort. In alliance with the Cahto Tribe of Laytonville Rancheria and others, we intend to protect and conserve the entirety of a key wild coho salmon watershed. Our goal is that the majority of the watershed ultimately be designated as a Cahto Protected Area. We ask that you join us in doing what is just and right for Nature and Indigenous People: to honor and secure lasting protection for this important area of the Cahto Tribe’s traditional lands and waters, including its imperiled salmon and other culturally—ecologically important species.

Tc’ibéétookwot is a unique and special place

• The upper South Fork Eel River watershed is home to the last viable metapopulation of California’s endangered coho salmon. Tc’ibéétookwot has been identified by CDFW and NMFS as one of only a few top priority coho salmon spawning streams in California. Other streams in the region do not have the consistently cool temperatures and critical habitat essential for coho.

• Tc’ibéétookwot’s recovering redwood ecosystem includes residual old growth and exceptionally large second-growth trees that are critical for maintaining cool stream temperatures and fire resiliency.

• The watershed’s bio-cultural diversity and abundance, including large tanoak and other wildlife trees, large riparian sedge swamps, rare plants, and other attributes make it a high priority for protection and continued recovery.

• Tc’ibéétookwot is an important living cultural landscape and heritage area of the Cahto Tribe, which lived in and cared for the watershed through respectful and reciprocal relation since time immemorial.  Tc’ibéétookwot’s biological diversity and abundance have resulted largely from the Cahto people’s diligent guardianship and tending of the watershed and its many forms of life.

Conserving Tc’ibéétookwot is a practical and important goal

• The 2800-acre watershed has only two major landowners and no public roads.

• The final mile of Tc’ibéétookwot, to its confluence with S. Fork Eel, is already protected in a 660-acre private reserve.

• The Tc’ibéétookwot watershed remains a place of vital bio-cultural significance for the Cahto Tribe.  The Cahto people retain a continuum of intergenerational connection to their traditional lands and waters, which they diligently cared for and coexisted in harmonious relationship with for millennia.

• The watershed is adjacent to three large protected areas, the 23,869 acres of the federal Elkhorn Ridge and S. Fork Eel River Wilderness Areas and the 7660-acre UC Berkeley Angelo Coast Range Reserve. Conserving the entire Tc’ibéétookwot watershed will significantly expand these protected forest and stream habitats, which is vitally important for the many critically important plant and animal species who live here.