California Governor Gavin Newsom has allocated millions of dollars to a program that funds Native American “food sovereignty,” owl counting, and “cultural burns,” according to a report published this week.
City Journal noted in particular that the cultural burns are when Native American tribes use traditional fire methods to clear brush and undergrowth from the land to preserve their “close kinship” with plants, animals, and “other natural relatives.”
in which tribal groups use traditional fire techniques to clear brush from the landscape and preserve their “close kinship” with plants, animals, and “other natural relatives.”
Since 2023, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) has distributed roughly $24 million to tribal organizations and nonprofit groups through its “Tribal Wildfire Resilience” program.
The initiative has drawn increased attention because it operates under the broader oversight of California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot, who has argued that California’s history includes what he describes as “state-sanctioned policy of genocide” and that the state has pursued “decades of land dispossession, discrimination, and disconnection.”
Crowfoot has said the Newsom administration has made progress in returning the land to the “leadership of California Native American tribes.”
While a portion of the Tribal Wildfire Resilience funding has been directed toward traditional wildfire prevention and land-management efforts, critics argue that a closer review of state grant records raises serious questions about how much of the money is actually being spent on fire mitigation.
According to those critics, some grants appear only loosely connected to wildfire resilience, leading to allegations that the program has evolved beyond its stated purpose and is functioning as a taxpayer-supported slush fund to tribes, City Journal reports.
The outlet adds:
In recent years, CalFire has awarded grants that have dubious fire-management benefits: $1 million for a grant that will help a tribe provide “forest-themed ingredients” to tribe-owned restaurants; $599,000 for another to help renovate land for use as a Native American summer camp; $166,000 to one that will pay for “[t]ribal staff and members” to observe spotted owl nests; $746,000 to one supporting a tribe’s “food sovereignty” and “Fire-Centered Climate Action Plan”; and $521,000 to one that will help a tribe maintain “close kinship” with plants, animals, and “other natural relatives such as water and fire.”
In 2022, California projected that tribes, “cultural fire practitioners,” and others would conduct 25,000 acres of prescribed burning annually by 2025.
The state has not released any data on the tribes’ progress, and some tribal leaders apparently insist on keeping the fires small. As Ron Goode explained, “We never burn anything bigger than a big beaver hut.”
Meanwhile, victims of the deadly Los Angeles Palisades fire that began in January 2025 are still waiting for compensation from the state.
Newsom pledged a $2.5 billion relief package, but investigations revealed that a significant portion was used for state agency expenses, firefighting reimbursements, and highway patrols rather than going directly to affected individuals.
“Sixteen months after California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a $2.5 billion package of relief funds and other measures for the victims of the January 2025 wildfires, state records show most of the fund remains unused, few of the dollars reached victims directly and some of the money was diverted for law enforcement unrelated to the response to the fires,” NBC4 in Los Angeles reported this week.
The local news outlet also “found much of the $605 million expended to date was circulated to state agencies that performed tasks related to the Eaton and Palisades fires, $37 million went to the LA City and County fire departments to reimburse the costs of firefighting, and nearly $21 million was paid to the California Highway Patrol for managing road closures and security in the fire zones.”
In all, some 60 percent initially designated for fire relief remains unused, NBC4 reported.
