Returning ancestral lands
At the heart of one of California’s most scenic stretches of coastline in Big Sur, the Esselen Tribe of Monterey County has regained its first ancestral homelands since it was displaced by the Spanish four centuries ago. In a landmark conservation transaction completed last summer, the Esselen Tribe and the accredited Western Rivers Conservancy (OR) finalized a project that places the 1,199-acre Adler Ranch south of Monterey into Esselen ownership.
The catalyst for the historic project was the Little Sur River, a near-pristine steelhead stream that flows out of the Ventana Wilderness and Santa Lucia Mountains. A mile of the stream flows through a deep, redwood-shaded canyon on the former ranch. “The Little Sur River is a rarity in a state where so many small coastal streams have all but disappeared,” says Peter Colby, California program director for Western Rivers Conservancy.
When the ranch went up for sale, Western Rivers Conservancy purchased it and worked with the Esselen Tribe to apply for a $4.5 million grant from the California Natural Resources Agency to return the land to the tribe. For the Esselen, the property is sacred ground and considered the gateway to the interior mountains of the Santa Lucia range.