In a promising development, the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation in San Diego embraced the conservation approach of the Multiple Species Conservation Program (MSCP) as it annexed land into its reservation.

Through what is known as “fee to trust” transfers, private land can enter the sovereign jurisdiction of a tribal government, which is immune from state and local laws, including the local ordinances that implement the MSCP. Thus, when land anticipated for incorporation into the reserve system is annexed into a tribal reservation, preserve assembly can no longer be counted on, even though the federal Endangered Species Act still applies.

However, the Sycuan Tribe linked its annexation to conservation commitments. The Tribe will use its own tribal ordinances to permanently protect reservation lands needed for the MSCP reserve system. And off reservation, it sold other land for conservation purposes, and helped create a tribal land trust, the Kumeyaay Diegueño Land Conservancy, to own and manage this and other protected lands. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was instrumental in the successful negotiations, which also resulted in a biologically sound footprint for new tribal housing.

We commend the Sycuan Tribe for melding its own conservation values into the regional MSCP system. This is a model for tribal and non-tribal governments alike.