Governor Newsom announces $44 million for tribal stewardship, salmon recovery and desert protection projects

Mojave Reserve: Creosote bush scrub and Joshua tree woodland near Yucca Grove in San Bernardino County.

Restoring and protecting biodiversity

The Newsom administration has continued to protect biodiversity, expand access to nature to all Californians, and strengthen relationships with tribes across the state.

The state has helped restore and rehabilitate ecosystems across the state, including efforts to restore salmon populations and habitats.

Last June, Governor Newsom announced major progress toward protecting salmon populations and their habitats, with nearly 50% of actions to restore aquatic ecosystems completed since the launch of California’s first strategy to protect salmon amid hotter, drier weather in 2024. With administration investments, salmon populations are rebounding and allowing California’s commercial and recreational salmon fisheries to reopen for the first time in three years.
Last April, California’s work to restore salmon populations made strong progress — and commercial fishing of ocean salmon resumed for the first time since 2022.
In November 2025, Governor Newsom also announced repopulation of the salmon in the Klamath River, providing important commercial, recreational, economic, intrinsic, and cultural benefits to fishing communities, California Native American tribes, and the entire state.
In October 2025, the largest ancestral land return in the Sierra Nevada foothills and the Central Valley restored cultural connections, strengthened tribal sovereignty, and advanced California’s 30×30 goals.
In April 2025, the state worked with local and federal agencies on a historic project to repopulate the North Yuba River with native fish, including salmon, and help protect the state’s waterways and ecosystems.
In June 2024, the Tule River Tribe, in partnership with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), released a family of seven beavers into the South Fork Tule River watershed for the first time in over a century. This project will have positive impacts on water supply, and improve drought and wildfire resilience.

Bigger picture

In 2019, Governor Newsom issued the first formal apology on behalf of the State of California to California Native American peoples at the future site of the California Indian Heritage Center. In that moment, he also announced the creation of the California Truth and Healing Council, charged with examining the historical relationship between the state and tribal communities and recommending steps toward truth, healing, and repair. Since then, the Council, led by Secretary Snider-Ashtari, has worked with tribal communities to record and better understand the historical relationship between the state and California Native Americans. Through collaborative and consultative work of the Council, the Governor’s Office of Tribal Affairs, and tribes across the state, the state has developed a number of programs and initiatives that place tribal partnership at the heart of land conservation, climate resilience, and cultural preservation, such as:

In 2020, the Governor directed state agencies to support California tribes’ co‑management of and access to natural lands that are within a California tribe’s ancestral land and under the ownership or control of the State of California. That directive, paired with record investments to tribes, has enabled California tribes to access and steward forests, rangelands, rivers, and coastline.

Through the administration’s Tribal Nature-Based Solutions grant program, and many other conservation grant programs, the state has awarded over $200 million to fund the return of over 100,000 acres of land to California Native American tribes.

Last month, building on Governor Gavin Newsom’s commitment to return ancestral lands and strengthen tribal stewardship, the state was nearing completion of a multi-year effort to return 136 acres of Blies County Bluffs in Mendocino County to tribal ownership through Kai Poma, a nonprofit established by three local Native American tribes with ancestral ties to the region.

For more information about WCB, visit wcb.ca.gov. To explore the newly funded projects, visit WCB’s StoryMaps pages.

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