The Native American Land Conservancy (NALC) acquires threatened cultural landscapes, organizes conferences to promote the preservation of Native American sacred lands, and forms cooperative agreements with tribes, public agencies and conservation groups. The NALC was established in 1998 as an intertribal 501(c)(3) organization to pursue a vision of working with tribes to strengthen both connection
s between Native American tribes and between tribes and their culture, traditions, and heritage. These landscapes provide a connection to the past, and play a critical role bringing healing to the Native American community. The organization is motivated by a sense of extreme urgency because Native American sacred sites are endangered by unprecedented levels of development and a lack of protection under state and federal laws. The vision and orientation of the NALC are reflected in the NALC’s management goal for the Old Woman Mountains Preserve. The Old Woman Mountain Preserve (OWMP)
Supported in part by Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians, the NALC identified the Old Woman Mountains as an unprotected cultural landscape and secured the land in 2002. The 2,560-acre Preserve is located in the Ward Valley, 40 miles west of the Colorado River at the northern extension of the Old Woman Mountains. The site was purchased to protect its traditional cultural properties, as well as the flora and fauna which have a unique historical meaning and value to the Native American community. Now, the NALC manages the property and works toward restoring it. The land is also used for Native American healing landscape programs. The NALC has also worked with the Sweeney Granite Mountains Desert Research Center to conduct biological surveys of the property and its flora and fauna. In short, the NALC will manage the preserve to protect, in perpetuity, its biological, cultural, and historic resources while utilizing it as a learning
and healing landscape.
