Amah Mutsun Land Trust

05/14/2026

AMLT staff were given the opportunity to gather at Nyland to participate in 's Community Planting Day and had a fun, educational day on the property. Thank you, Point Blue STRAW team, for your ongoing partnership!

04/22/2026

Our four-legged, winged, finned, and plant kin have provided us with all that we needed for millennia, we will care for them. Every day is Earth Day at AMLT. 🌍

04/16/2026

Our Native Stewardship Corps (NCS) recently attended Wildland Fire Chainsaw training with Southern Sierra Fire Training. This important training provided them with an introduction to the function, maintenance, and use of engine-powered chainsaws and their tactical wildland fire application.

It’s our aim to ensure that our interns and stewards are provided with all the tools they need to succeed in this challenging field!

04/10/2026

New things are brewing on our land. We are now beginning to work towards building our own facility to propagate plants for restoration at Juristac and other Mutsun lands, beginning with a creek restoration project at the Nyland property in San Juan Bautista along with an exciting acquisition opportunity adjacent to Chitactac-Adams Heritage County Park near Gilroy. We look forward to sharing more with the AMLT community very soon.

04/06/2026

On February 13, Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History opened an exciting new exhibition focused on the bonds of kinship between people and plants.

The exhibition was created by University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) undergraduates and an intergenerational cohort of Amah Mutsun Tribal members. It opened this month with a lovely event featuring presentations by AMLT staff members Jaynee Venegas, Steven Pratt, Alexii Sigona, and Esak Ordonez, as well as AMLT Board member Julisa Lopez and AMTB youth River Thompson.

The exhibit runs until June 7th and we encourage you to check it out!

Read more about the exhibit from the Kenneth S. Norris Center for Natural History: https://conta.cc/41MMGnS

04/03/2026

We are excited to share that we have completed our five year program with the Cascade Regenerator Program at Pie Ranch!

Through this remarkable accelerator and the countless hours of work done by an army of dedicated volunteers, we were provided land access, infrastructure, shared equipment, and mentorship that helped lay the foundation for our next phase of work within traditional Mutsun naturescapes. We are currently wrapping up a hedgerow project at Pie Ranch, and we continue to partner with California State Parks to steward Quiroste Valley with an upcoming cultural burn.

THANK YOU to all who gave their time, talent, and resources to help AMLT learn and grow. We are excited to take this knowledge and skills needed to reconnect and care for sacred Tribal lands into our future endeavors on our own land. More coming soon!

03/26/2026

ED Noelle Chambers presented, with Chairman Ketchum and Interim Board President Julie Pineida participating in the broader conversation, at the 2026 California Land & Water Conservation Conference this past week, providing AMLT updates to a packed house.

So much great news to share!

02/11/2026

Tomorrow's the day! Join us for the HONORING THE RELATIVES event at Santa Cruz Museum of Art. Opening Reception is 6:00-8:00 PM .

More information at: https://www.santacruzmah.org/exhibitions/honoring-our-relatives

01/31/2026

This absolutely stunning vista is now protected in perpetuity! 🙌

Six times the size of Golden Gate Park, Sargent Ranch has been at the center of development battles for decades

01/29/2026

HISTORY HAS BEEN WRITTEN TODAY! JURISTAC IS PROTECTED!

After decades of hard work by our people and supportive partners, we are honored to share the news of an important milestone for the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band and for the sacred landscape of Juristac. Today, our partners at Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) announced the purchase and permanent protection of 2,284 acres of Sargent Ranch, bringing their total ownership to more than 6,100 conserved acres of the Juristac Tribal Cultural Landscape and ending the threat of the proposed sand and gravel mine!

For years, this sacred place faced the threat of a massive open‑pit sand and gravel mine that would have destroyed hundreds of acres of cultural sites, threatened the lives of plants and animals alike, and irreparably damaged the spiritual and cultural integrity of the land. The Tribe made clear that such harm could never be undone, and it would have decimated one of the last remaining undisturbed areas in Mutsun territory. Today, that threat no longer exists.

We want to honor the Protect Juristac Tribal campaign team and all Tribal members who participated, the Green Foothills advocacy group, and all the allied organizations of the Protect Juristac coalition which worked tirelessly to eliminate the threat.

And we thank POST for their continued willingness to honor the cultural and spiritual significance of Juristac and to work with the Tribe in a respectful, collaborative way. Their partnership reflects a shared understanding that these sacred sites and the critically important wildlife habitat linkage at Juristac must be preserved for future generations.

Please join us as we celebrate and offer prayers of gratitude to Creator and the ancestors who guided and aided us on our path to healing and restoration and making this dream now a reality.

Ho!

Ed Ketchum
Chairman, Amah Mutsun Tribal Band
Board Member, Amah Mutsun Land Trust

12/31/2025

Yesterday we shared the big news that we have officially acquired our first property in Mutsun territory - and now the REAL work begins!

The land needs us. It needs healing and restoration and we will put our all into making that happen, but we need your help to do so!

How can you help? One great way is to go to and donate!

Today is the *FINAL DAY* of and we are so close to securing the top of the leaderboard for "Number of Donors" - PLEASE HELP US SECURE THE WIN!

Additional cash prizes are awarded if we do!

Let's close this incredible year out with a bang! 🙏❤️ Thank you to all who support!!