Winter 2026
Returning a piece of Yosemite to the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation
Sitting atop a strategic ridgeline that bridges Yosemite National Park and Sierra National Forest, the nearly 900-acre property has now been returned to the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation—restoring a piece of Yosemite’s ancestral homeland to its original caretakers.
This transfer, completed in November 2025 with funding from the California Natural Resources Agency Tribal Nature-Based Solutions Program, represents a landmark achievement for both cultural restoration and conservation. For the Southern Sierra Miwuk people, who were expelled from Yosemite with the establishment of the park, it re-establishes a presence in their homeland and provides a base for self-governance, cultural revitalization, and community healing. For PFT, which acquired the property to restore and conserve the extraordinary natural forest, prevent development and protect it forever, it fulfills a vision decades in the making.
Sandra Chapman, Tribal Council Chair and elder of the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation
This land will be a sanctuary for our people and a place to reconnect with our ancestors.”
— Sandra Chapman, Tribal Council Chair and elder of the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation
From the outset, PFT saw Henness Ridge as an irreplaceable landscape at risk. It contains conifer forests with sugar pine, cedar and fir, oak woodlands and meadows, and many springs, including the headwaters of two tributaries of the South Fork Merced. It also holds evidence of long use by the Southern Sierra Miwuk: an ancient trail traverses the property, linking the oak woodlands of the Central Valley to Yosemite Valley.
“When we were first approached to purchase the property, which was actually included in the proposed boundary for Yosemite National Park and is now the boundary limiting the Yosemite West development, we knew it’s protection was integral to Yosemite’s ecology and history. Protecting it was essential,” recalls Laurie Wayburn, PFT’s President.
PFT initially sought to add Henness Ridge to Yosemite National Park, aligning with John Muir’s vision of the integrity of the landscape, and in 2014, PFT transferred a portion of the property to the park. But congressional opposition to expanding public lands blocked efforts to bring the remainder into the park, despite universal, bipartisan support within California. At that turning point, PFT began to consider another future, one that would prove even more fitting.
After learning that the lands were within the ancestral territory of the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation’s and supporting their effort to become federally recognized, PFT opened discussions with the SSMN to see if they might be interested in owning it. They were — a number of the SSMN had a vision of again being on the land, restoring both the land and their cultural roots Now, with years of effort, that has come to pass. “Returning Henness Ridge to the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation restores not only ecological integrity but also justice. It gives the tribe back a piece of Yosemite.”
For the SSMN, the return of Henness Ridge is both practical and spiritual. “This land will be a sanctuary for our people and a place to reconnect with our ancestors,” says Sandra Chapman, Tribal Council Chair and elder of the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation. “It allows us to restore cultural practices, bring our community together, and ensure a healthy legacy for our children and grandchildren.”
On a clear day atop Henness Ridge, you can see all the way to the Pacific.
SSMN envisions Henness Ridge as a living classroom, where they can relearn and revitalize traditional practices — restoring natural forest structure, eradicating invasive species, cultivating significant native plants, and reintroducing cultural fire — and pass this knowledge on to new generations. These practices will not only enhance biodiversity, water quality, and climate resilience but also renew the traditions that sustained the land for millennia.
The transfer also underscores PFT’s long-standing commitment to working in partnership with tribal nations. More than two decades ago, PFT partnered with the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council to establish the first-ever conservation easement with a Tribal entity in the United States. That precedent helped pave the way for projects like Henness Ridge, where conservation and cultural restoration go hand in hand.
The return of Henness Ridge brings full circle a journey that began with risk of private sale and ends with renewal. It reconnects the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation to their ancestral Yosemite lands, strengthens the ecological web of one of the world’s most iconic landscapes, and affirms a future rooted in stewardship, resilience, and justice.