Tuleyome's Policy Corner - What Does it Take to Add Molok Luyuk to Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument?

Sandy Schubert • December 7, 2023

Molok Luyuk with Snow Mountain the distance by Marc Hoshovsky

In today’s policy corner, I thought I’d take the opportunity to answer some questions that we’ve received regarding the steps necessary to add Molok Luyuk to Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument, or to establish any National Monument.


Establishing a National Monument is first and foremost a community process. It is the best of democracy; people in a community or communities coming together with their neighbors and elected representatives to effect positive change.


There are two ways to establish a National Monument and protect objects of historic or scientific interest. Monuments can be established through a Presidential proclamation pursuant to the Antiquities Act of 1906, 16 USC 431-433, or through an Act of Congress, legislation. The vast majority of Monuments are established by Presidential proclamation.


The effort to protect Molok Luyuk’s public lands began with a coalition of folks including Tuleyome, the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, conservation and recreation groups, scientists, landowners and our champions in Congress who recognized Molok Luyuk’s significant cultural, geological and natural resource values.


Representatives Garamendi and Thompson, Senator Padilla and the late Senator Feinstein introduced The Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument Expansion Act in two different sessions of Congress. The legislation would add Molok Luyuk (currently known as Walker Ridge) to Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument, rename it Molok Luyuk (Patwin for Condor Ridge) and require Tribal co-management of the Monument.


Tuleyome and our partners built support for the bills’ passage. We’ve been on the ground in Lake and Colusa County communities that will benefit from the increased recreation and economic benefits that Monuments bring, going door to door to talk with folks about our efforts. We have met with our elected representatives and decision-makers —locally, in California and in DC. We have published articles and held lectures with experts throughout the area.


This is democracy in action.


This support led to the House bill passing off the floor of the House of Representatives and the Senate bill passing unanimously out of committee with the support of leadership of both parties. Unfortunately, the effort could not withstand forces opposed to expanding public lands in the House of Representatives and the bills have not become law. 


So, we turned our efforts to obtaining a Presidential proclamation.


Of course, the best way to share the significance of a place is to share the actual place. I was honored to be able to participate in Secretary Haaland’s visit to Molok Luyuk in September of this year. I had the opportunity to speak directly with Secretary Haaland, BLM Director Stone-Manning, Representatives Garamendi and Thompson and Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation Secretary James Kinter about the uniqueness and importance of this place. Secretary Haaland also held a roundtable with Tribes and community leaders and took a hike with us on Frog Pond Trail.


We have continued our on-the-ground efforts in the Counties, hosted a dozen wildflower tours for decision-makers and the media and keep expanding our coalition. We now have dozens of businesses, local and neighboring landowners, local Tribes, a coalition of dozens of varied groups, and more than 87,000 individuals supporting the effort to protect Molok Luyuk.


So, what are the next steps?


The next step is a public listening session, where we get the opportunity to speak directly with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Forest Service (USFS) officials and share why this place is important to us. At it, BLM and USFS will hear from Tribes, elected officials and the public.


It is our chance to show President Biden what we want for our communities. It is our chance to convince President Biden to protect Molok Luyuk, to issue a Presidential proclamation adding Molok Luyuk to Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument.

It is democracy in action.


The question Tuleyome doesn’t get from our members is: What does adding Molok Luyuk to Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument mean for me?


You already know.

  • It gives you a say in its Management, in what is protected and how, a say in how and where we play with our friends and family.
  • It brings recreation and economic opportunities to local communities.
  • It allows Tribes to co-manage these public lands in partnership with BLM, drawing on thousands of years of knowledge of the land and its cycles and better protecting the places that we love.
  • It means that your kids and their kids will also be able to enjoy and appreciate all that Molok Luyuk and Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument offer.


Adding Molok Luyuk to Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument means better stewardship of this place and its resources for all of us. After all, it is our public land.


So, if you haven’t already, join us in protecting Molok Luyuk for today and tomorrow.


Come to the Public Listening Session on December 13 from 2 - 4 pm at the Woodland Community and Senior Center and sign our petition.



-Sandra Schubert; sschubert@tuleyome.org

Executive Director

RECENT ARTICLES

Thank You, Stephen!

June 5, 2025
We extend our thanks and gratitude to Stephen McCord as he ends his tenure on the Tuleyome Board of Directors. Stephen has applied his energy and expertise to fulfilling Tuleyome’s mission for many years. In 2016 he managed the first Tuleyome mercury mine remediation project at the Corona/Twin Peaks Mine. He followed that with work on Tuleyome trail projects in the Knoxville Off-Highway Vehicle Area, riding all the trails on his own adventure motorcycle. As a Tuleyome representative, he’s taken many community members on hikes in Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument and the surrounding areas. Stephen has over 20 years of environmental engineering experience, in California and worldwide. He has overseen extensive projects in water quality field work, management and cleanup, and has applied his knowledge to policy development, analysis and technical support. In short, Stephen is a consummate environmental and water engineer, and he brought his expertise to Tuleyome’s many projects. In 2023 Stephen joined the Board of Directors and agreed to serve as President. He applied his supreme organizational skills to managing board duties and activities. He also brought an optimism to the board about what can be accomplished with foresight, good planning and collaboration. Stephen has been a tireless advocate for Tuleyome, keeping the board on task even while handling numerous other professional responsibilities. Fortunately, although he is stepping down from the board, he will continue to support Tuleyome’s mission in many other ways. -Kim Longworth, Lyndsay Dawkins and Bill Grabert Volunteer Tuleyome Board members 

Game Cameras at Conaway Ranch!

By Geoff Benn • June 5, 2025
A river otter making its way up the slide. Looking to take a break with some cute video content? This month we placed game cameras looking into an otter slide at Conaway Ranch. Otter slides are paths worn into riverbanks by repeated use by otters and other animals. The slides at Conaway are quite active, so we’ve been able to get some great footage, including otters, beavers, racoons, snakes, and more! 

Policy Corner: The Public Lands Rule: The Significance of Conservation

By Bryan Pride • June 5, 2025
Since April 2024, America's public lands had something they'd never had before: a rule that treated conservation as equal to all other land uses. The Public Lands Rule , introduced by the Biden Administration, formally recognized conservation as a legitimate practice of multiple use, putting conservation on equal footing with recreation, grazing, and resource extraction. Built on decades of management experience and guided by science, data, and Indigenous knowledge, it gives land managers tools to maintain healthy ecosystems while supporting all the diverse ways we depend on public lands. It acknowledges a simple truth: conservation must be valued equally to all other land uses. Now there is growing pressure to rescind it. Why This Matters The environment around us is free-flowing, it's not confined to state borders or county lines. When mining operations contaminate watersheds in Northern California, it impacts the local businesses who depend on healthy rivers downstream, the agricultural communities that rely on clean water, and the families who've been camping along those waterways for generations. The Public Lands Rule recognized this interconnected reality and gave land managers agency to address problems before they spread across California's diverse landscapes, protecting the long-term viability of grazing allotments, recreation areas, and rural livelihoods that all depend on healthy public lands. This interconnected reality is exactly why the Public Lands Rule matters. The Rule is designed to ensure that the places we depend on, whether for weekend camping trips, or cattle grazing, stay healthy enough to support these uses long-term. When an area becomes overgrazed and doesn't recover, access to those grazing allotments is permanently lost, reducing ranchers' ability to maintain their livelihoods and harming local food production. Poor use or overuse of our public lands creates ripples of negative impact that hurt all communities. The Rule's main objective is simple but revolutionary: make sure our public lands stay productive for everyone who depends on them, rather than degrade them. The Rule created practical tools that built in accountability and prioritized future generations' access to healthy public lands. Restoration Leases : 10-year agreements allowing a variety of entities such as, conservation groups, tribes, and nonprofits to restore damaged landscapes—fires restoration, restoring wildlife habitats and cleaning up abandoned mining sites that currently scar some of our most beautiful public lands. Mitigation Leases : A tool that allows land users or other entities to offset impacts from their activities over specified time periods, creating partnerships between different land users and conservation groups to address environmental impacts on public lands. Strengthened Protection for Critical Areas : Clearer guidelines for protecting Areas of Critical Environmental Concern—the most special and fragile places that often provide the best wildlife viewing, the cleanest water sources, the most pristine camping experiences and the richest biodiversity. The False Dichotomy: Multiple Use vs. Conservation The main argument being used to encourage the rollback of the Public Lands Rule is " multiple use ", the legal principle requiring Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands to serve many different purposes. The current Administration claims the Public Lands Rule hinders multiple uses of public lands. Why? The Rule calls for restoring degraded areas and making science based decisions. Contrary to their actual meaning, the current Administration interprets "restoring" and "science based decisions" as "locking up land". Land locking, where access gets completely cut off, is a real concern in some areas—it prevents both recreation and grazing. However, land locking is not what the Public Lands Rule promotes. In reality, it is promoting land healing. Take grazing for example. The Rule empowers BLM to use restoration leases in conjunction with existing grazing permittees to restore degraded rangeland. Monitoring who is grazing where and the number of permits issued for specific areas is a means to ensure sustainable grazing and prevent overuse. Many ranchers and land managers supported the Rule because they understand that healthy land is productive land. Overgrazing and environmental damage hurt their livelihoods too. The same principle applies to fire recovery. When public lands are damaged by sweeping wildfires, there is a need for active restoration: replanting native vegetation, stabilizing soils, removing hazardous debris. Restoration has to take place before safe recreation, grazing and other uses can resume. At times, restoration requires temporarily limiting access to burned areas as they recover. The goal is to allow for our lands to recover and heal before we start depending on them again with our multiple uses. Land restoration is not just limited to grazing or extraction; it is essential for recovering from wildfires. Whether it's grazing, recreation, or extraction, the Public Lands Rule isn't about stopping these uses, it's about understanding that healthy ecosystems are prerequisites for multiple use, not obstacles to it. You can't have sustainable grazing on degraded rangeland, quality recreation in fire damaged landscapes, or responsible extraction without considering long-term impacts We Are Public Stewards The Public Lands Rule represents a historic shift in how we value conservation, its potential rollback is a setback. But the vision it represents, conservation as a form of legitimate multiple use, remains essential and is not gone. As stewards of these 245 million acres, we have the power to practice conservation in our own actions and advocacy. Every time we practice Leave No Trace, support local businesses that operate responsibly on public lands, and make our voices heard in land management decisions, we're building the foundation for balanced stewardship that benefits everyone. Our public lands belong to all of us, which means we each have the power, and responsibility, to be good stewards of the lands we love. -Bryan Pride ( bpride@tuleyome.org ) Certified California Naturalist Policy Director