Opinion: Lawmakers Must Weigh State Park Move

California lawmakers are weighing a bill to give Tolowa Dunes State Park — about 4,301 acres in Del Norte County — to the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation at no cost. (calmatters.org) Assembly Bill 2356, by Assemblymember James Ramos, was introduced on February 19, 2026 and amended on March 23. The amended version would require the Department of General Services to transfer the state’s land in the park and end grazing and other third-party leases tied to the parcels. (legiscan.com) The bill was re-referred to the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee on March 24, 2026. Public bill trackers listed it for an April 14, 2026 committee hearing, while the committee’s posted bill-hearing page shows the April 14 agenda and results for other measures, not AB 2356. (calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org) (legiscan.com) (awpw.assembly.ca.gov) Tolowa Dunes is not a small roadside parcel. California State Parks says the park includes ocean beach, dunes, wooded ridges and wetlands, and serves as a Pacific Flyway stopover for migrating ducks, geese and swans. (parks.ca.gov) The land is also central to the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation’s history and religious life. Local reporting on the bill quotes tribal descendant Brie Fraley saying public ownership has made it harder to practice spirituality safely at Yontocket, a village site within the park. (redwoodvoice.org) California has been moving toward more tribal control of ancestral lands for several years, but usually through co-management or transfers from nonprofits rather than by handing over an existing state park. Governor Gavin Newsom’s 2020 policy statement told state agencies to support tribal co-management, access and, when land exceeds state needs, tribal acquisition. (parks.ca.gov) State Parks has also signed a growing list of memorandums of understanding with tribes instead of transferring park ownership. Its tribal affairs pages describe those agreements as a way to collaborate on stewardship, cultural resources and traditional ecological knowledge inside existing park systems. (joincsp.parks.ca.gov) (parks.ca.gov) A recent example took a different path: in March 2024, Save the Redwoods League, the Yurok Tribe, the National Park Service and California State Parks signed an agreement to return the 125-acre ‘O Rew property to the tribe in 2026, with public access to be co-managed afterward. That land is a park gateway next to Redwood National and State Parks, not a transfer of a full state park itself. (parks.ca.gov) Dan Walters’ column frames the Capitol fight around what lawmakers would do if other tribes seek similar transfers. His piece says the Tolowa Dunes proposal would test how far California is willing to go beyond co-management and into outright transfer of public parkland. (calmatters.org) The immediate question is whether AB 2356 advances this spring. The broader one, already sitting in the bill text, is whether California treats Tolowa Dunes as a one-off land return or as a model for future claims on state-owned ancestral lands. (calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org)