The document summarizes the work of the Amah Mutsun Land Trust and their place-based stewardship efforts. It discusses the history of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, their collaborations with agencies and researchers, and the formation of the Amah Mutsun Land Trust. It then describes some of the Land Trust's place-based stewardship projects, which involve Native Stewards conducting ecological restoration and cultural activities at sites like Pinnacles National Park, Quiroste Valley Cultural Preserve, and Pie Ranch to reconnect with and care for the land.

1. The Amah Mutsun Land Trust and Place-Based Stewardship
Rob Q. Cuthrell – Open Space Conference – May 19, 2016
Director of Archaeological Resource Management, Amah Mutsun Land Trust
Postdoctoral Scholar, Archaeological Research Facility, UC Berkeley
Amah Mutsun tribe members Nathan Vasquez and Gabriel Pineida look out from
the top of Mount Umunhum, the location of Amah Mutsun’s creation story.

2. -History of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band
-Collaborations with Agencies and Researchers
-The Amah Mutsun Land Trust
-Place-based Stewardship
Native Steward Gabriel Pineida surveys
deergrass and other plants at Pinnacles
National Park.
Native Stewards harvest tule to build a fence
around the Amah Mutsun Native Garden at Pie
Ranch, Año Nuevo Point, July 2015.

3. The Amah Mutsun
Tribal Band
Above: Native Stewards Abran Lopez,
Paul Lopez, and Nathan Vasquez
harvest shellfish from tide pools.
Right: Language and tribal territory
map of San Francisco Bay Area (Bay
Nature, April 2016).

4. Indigenous Land Stewardship in California
Omer Stewart, work
completed 1954, published
in 2002.
Kent Lightfoot and Otis
Parrish, 2009.
M. Kat Anderson, 2005.

5. Outreach areas of the Bay Area Spanish missions. From Milliken et al., 2009, “Ohlone/Costanoan
Indians of the San Francisco Peninsula and their Neighbors, Yesterday and Today.”

6. Contemporary Amah Mutsun Tribal Band territory. Adapted from Milliken et al., 2009,
“Ohlone/Costanoan Indians of the San Francisco Peninsula and their Neighbors, Yesterday and
Today.”

7. Valentin Lopez, AMTB Chair. Photo by
Bay Nature, April 2016.
Ascension Solorsano, Mutsun doctura
and tribal leader, 1920s. One of the
last fluent speakers of the Mutsun
language.
Amah Mutsun dancers and tanoak acorns gathered by Native
Stewards.

8. Prescribed burning of deergrass (basketry material) at
Pinnacles National Park, 2011. The first prescribed burn
for cultural purposes on public land in Amah Mutsun
territory.
Amah Mutsun Tribal Band members
Bianca Pineida, Nathan Vasquez, and
Manuel Pineida assist ecologist Sara
French in sedge survey at Pinnacles
National Park.
Pinnacles National Park

9. UC Berkeley researchers collect a sediment
core for pollen analysis near Quiroste Valley
Cultural Preserve.
Amah Mutsun Tribal Band members Ernie and Angelo Pineida
(foreground) and UC Berkeley students screen archaeological
materials from Quiroste Valley Cultural Preserve, 2008.
Researchers from UCB and SJSU collect redwood sections for
fire scar analysis.
Quiroste Valley
Cultural Preserve

10. Amah Mutsun Land Trust
AMLT Native Steward Abran Lopez removes jubata grass
from a conservation easement near Quiroste Valley.
AMLT Stewards and UCSC students plant native grasses
and forbs at UCSC Arboretum.

11. AMLT stewardship project map (above); Native Stewards tending plants in Quiroste Valley (top right); Native
Stewards learning to make traditional native grass seed pinole (bottom right).
Amah Mutsun Land Trust

12. Place-Based Stewardship
February 2016 – After a year of planning and relationship-
building, Native Stewards, Pie Ranch staff, tribe members, and
volunteers work together to initiate planting in the native garden.
Photo by Sally Kimmel.
Stewardship grounded in relationships to intimately known places, in which
decisions are based not only on physical needs of living things (including humans
and other creatures), but also on social, cultural, emotional, spiritual, intellectual,
and other needs.
February 2015 - Native Stewards begin
building the Amah Mutsun Native
Garden at Pie Ranch, Año Nuevo Point.

13. Conclusions
Much land has been protected, now it is time to build stewardship capacity.
Place-based approach: Respond to the diversity of historical trajectories and societal needs.
Ensure continuation of traditions while fostering new relationships between people and land.
Amah Mutsun tribe members, Native Stewards, researchers,
volunteers, and agency staff at Pinnacles National Park (left), Pie
Ranch (middle), and Cañada de los Osos (right).

14. Valentin Lopez: vlopez@amahmutsun.org
Rob Cuthrell: rcuthrell@amahmutsun.org