by Ryan Henson, Senior Policy Director
In November of 2023, the Pit River Tribe called upon President Biden to protect over 200,000 acres in the Medicine Lake Highlands of the Modoc, Klamath, and Shasta-Trinity National Forests as part of a proposed new Sáttítla National Monument that would be managed by the US Forest Service as a unified whole despite being in three different National Forests. Sáttítla has been damaged by energy extraction, mining, and poor logging practices over the decades and will almost certainly face much more abuse unless it is protected and properly managed.
CalWild and a number of NGOs and others have been assisting the Pit River Tribe in its effort to convince President Biden to establish the proposed NM. CalWild has focused on leveraging our relationships built over the decades in Lassen, Modoc, Shasta, and Siskiyou counties to help the Pit River Tribe and allies build the kind of “strong and diverse local support in the affected counties” that President Biden and Senators Padilla and Butler demand of NM proposals.
Thanks to this continuing hard work, neighboring Tribes, Senators Padilla and Butler, the California State Legislature, and a growing number of businesses, landowners, hunters and anglers, civic leaders of all kinds, and other people in the affected counties are endorsing the Pit River Tribe’s Sáttítla NM. In September, Senators Padilla and Butler introduced legislation in Congress to establish the NM. Since President Biden is the one who must act to declare the NM a reality, the bill is a symbolic but required step in the designation process.
To learn more about this campaign and to sign the Pit River Tribe’s petition, please visit https://www.protectmedicinelakehighlands.org/take-action
