Klamath Tribes Negotiates Deal To Buy Back Former Lands

In a deal announced Thursday, a timber company in southern Oregon has agreed to sell 90,000 acres of forest to the Klamath Tribes.

The piece of land is known as the Mazama Tract and runs along Highway 97 east of Crater Lake. Central Oregon correspondent Ethan Lindsey reports.

Like the rest of the tribe’s 2.5 million acre reservation, the Mazama Tract was tribal territory until 1953, when Congress pushed Oregon’s Indian tribes off their land.

Now, the Klamath Tribes have signed a deal with the non-profit Trust for Public Lands and the company Cascade Timberlands.

Jeff Mitchell is a tribal councilmember.

Jeff Mitchell: “You know, this is just a small piece toward trying to keep this community together. And one day, we plan on catching salmon once again in the streams and rivers of the Upper Klamath Basin.”

The deal isn’t finalized yet – in fact, it’s heavily dependent on the planned removal of four dams from the Klamath River.

The tribes agreed to pay $21 million for the land.  The money's expected to come from Congress, if it approves the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, which is designed around the destruction of the dams.

Source:  http://news.opb.org/article/3827-klamath-tribes-negotiates-deal-buy-back-former-lands/