"As part of a $4.5 million land deal, the ancestral homeland of the Esselen Tribe has been returned to its people after being landless for a quarter of a millennium.
“We are back after a 250-year absence – because in 1770 our people were taken to the missions,” Tom Little Bear Nason, chairman of the Esselen Tribe of Monterey County, told the Monterey County Weekly. “Now we are back home. We plan on keeping this land forever.”
The 1,200 acres of undeveloped private property near Big Sur, known as the Adler Ranch, are being transferred to the Esselen Tribe of Monterey County, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving tribal heritage.
The property, on the Little Sur River, is home to old-growth redwoods and endangered wildlife such as the California condor and red-legged frog, which will be protected as part of the deal."
Andrew Chamings reports for the San Francisco Chronicle July 28, 2020.
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