California Public Resources Code

§ 4505

PRC § 4505 Effective Jan 1, 2025Div. 4 · Part 2 · Ch. 7 · Art. 4.5

Statute text

(a)(1) The Legislature acknowledges that federally recognized California Native American tribes have inherent sovereignty and authority to regulate their members and cultural practices, including, but not limited to, cultural fire practitioners and cultural burning.

(2)The Legislature finds and declares that in order to meet fuel management and wildfire resilience goals of the state and to address the historical wrongs of criminalizing cultural use of fire, the state must work collaboratively with federally recognized California Native American tribes that engage in cultural burning within their ancestral territories.

(b)(1) The Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency, in consultation with its departments, commissions, boards, conservancies, and other entities, may enter into written agreements with federally recognized California Native American tribes in support of tribal sovereignty with respect to cultural burning in their ancestral territories. In deference to tribal sovereignty, the secretary may agree in a written agreement regarding cultural burning that compliance with either of the following is not required:

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Legislative history

Added by Stats. 2024, Ch. 666, Sec. 4. (SB 310) Effective January 1, 2025. Repealed as of January 1, 2030, by its own provisions. Note: Repeal affects Article 4.5, commencing with Section 4505.