AMLT Newsletter — Amah Mutsun Land Trust

AMLT’s Newsletter!

AMLT releases a electronic newsletter that is distributed through email and placed on our website. These newsletters include opening statements from Chairman Lopez, our Executive Director, and highlight some of the recent projects and other initiatives of AMLT. If you would like to be added to the mailing list, please fill out the form here, or send an email to info@amahmutsun.org asking to be added to the mailing list.

2025 Fall Equinox Newsletter

Letter from the Executive Director

By Noelle Chambers, AMLT Executive Director

Dear friends,

Happy Fall Equinox and 10 years of AMLT! September 2025 marks the 10th anniversary of AMLT’s incorporation as a non-profit organization. We are profoundly grateful for all the support we have received along the way, and are especially moved by our community, which has been with us since the beginning. It feels particularly poignant that we get to celebrate one decade of revitalizing Indigenous stewardship by achieving a significant milestone: the acquisition of land...continue reading.

Amah Mutsun Land Trust Acquires First Property in Ancestral Territory

Amah Mutsun Land Trust (AMLT) announces that by the end of 2025, AMLT will acquire a 50-acre property near the intersection of Highways 129 and 101 in San Juan Bautista, Calif., marking the first time the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band (AMTB) has regained full access rights to land in its traditional territory since their forced removal over 225 years ago.

“In 2006, our Tribal Council talked about how we have an obligation to restore the knowledge of our ancestors so we can return to their path and fulfill our obligation to Creator. Since 2006 our Tribe, and Land Trust, have worked hard to relearn the traditional ways of our ancestors, including how to develop harvesting methods that ensured sustainability for thousands of years, how to use cultural burning techniques that maintained the coastal prairie on the central coast of California as one of the most biodiverse landscapes in North America, and how to develop relationships with our native plants so they develop deep root systems that are more resistant to fire, flood, drought and disease.

When our Tribe first started thinking about developing a land trust around 2011, we really wrestled with the concept of owning land. Our Creation Story tells us that we have the responsibility of stewarding the land and taking care of all our human and non-human relatives. However, our ancestors clearly understood that the land belongs to Creator and therefore they never thought of their traditional Tribal territory in terms of ownership. Now, fourteen years later, we realize that “ownership” of land may be the best way to ensure that we can protect the land from development, allowing us to continue the traditional land stewardship and management practices of our ancestors until the last sunrise.

This newsletter talks about the first land acquisition of our Tribe. We intend to restore the lands we acquire to their precontact condition as much as possible. This will ensure that all wildlife return to their native foods and that biodiversity and sacredness are restored to these lands. Within our Tribe, we recognize that it took seven to nine generations to reach our current conditions and that it will take a similar number of generations to restore these beautiful landscapes to their original condition. Although we will acquire lands in the name of our Amah Mutsun Land Trust, we will never forget that these lands belong to Creator.

Ho!”

~Chairman Valentin Lopez

Learn more about AMLT's first acquisition and this significant step forward for the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band.

Read Bay Nature's Article about the acquisition HERE.

AMLT Relaunches Flagship Native Stewardship Corps Program

By Adam French, AMLT Director of Programs & Noah Orth, AMLT Native Stewardship Corps Manager

On August 4, the Amah Mutsun Land Trust accomplished the long-awaited relaunch of its Native Stewardship Corps (NSC) program. After an extended period of program evaluation, visioning, and reorganization led by AMLT staff, and involving input from the Tribe and close organizational partners, the necessary systems, facilities, and program staff were all finally in place to welcome a group of eight Mutsun Tribal members into the NSC and its residential base in the Santa Cruz Mountains...continue reading.

2025 Summer Internship Program: Collaborative Archaeology, Heritage, and Cultural Landscapes

By Gabriel Sanchez, PhD, University of Oregon; Elizabeth Rodriguez, Tribal Member, 2025 Summer Intern; Cameron Garcia, 2025 Summer Intern Supervisor; Rose Mooney, Graduate Student, University of Oregon

This summer brought together 19 summer interns, members of the Native Stewardship Corps, the Cultural Resources Program of the Amah Mutsun Land Trust, and 18 members of the University of Oregon over five weeks to learn more about the application of archaeology in stewarding cultural landscapes and protecting sacred and ancestral sites...continue reading.

2025 Summer Camp: Honoring Tradition, Vision, and Resilience

By Maura Pratt, AMLT Summer Camp Coordinator

AMLT Annual Summer Camp is more than a program—it is a promise: that our youth will always have a place to gather, to learn, and to grow in the traditions of our people. Read about this year's summer camp here.

Update from the Hedgerow Project

By Aylara Odekova, AMLT Native Plant Propagation Program Manager

This month, AMLT completed fieldwork on restoring and revegetating four acres of land at Pie Ranch. Funded by the Coastal Conservancy, this project started in June 2023 with treatment of invasive plants that thrived after the CZU Fire Complex. Since then, AMLT has completed six hand treatments throughout the entire restoration area, attempting to control highly invasive species, such as poison hemlock, Italian thistle and nasturtium...continue reading.

Organizational Updates from AMLT

As AMLT turns the page on its first decade under the leadership of the new Executive Director, Noelle Chambers, AMLT is embarking on an exciting period of growth. AMLT has engaged support from Dakin Ventures Consulting Group to support internal changes and the development of new systems and practices. This collaboration has resulted in a variety of changes that are improving AMLT’s operational efficiency and efficacy, preparing for opportunities to increase AMLT’s impact through integrated stewardship across Mutsun territory. Read more from Elizabeth Singleton, Operations & Strategy Consultant, DVCG.