Abramson Accepts Seat on City of Davis Natural Resources Commission

for immediate release 4/27, 2:08PM

Serving the City of Davis Natural Resources Commission and Paying Homage to the Original Peoples of This Land

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Abramson Accepts Seat on City of Davis Natural Resources Commission

I am very excited to be joining the Natural Resources Commission and to have the opportunity to work with the other commissioners, City Council & Staff, the community in Davis and Yolo County, and indigenous peoples to move towards a healthy future with clean air, clean water, healthy soil, food security, renewable infrastructure, resilience in a changing climate, and a transition to economies that protect our most sacred resources and sustain life.

I thank the City City Council for putting their faith in me as a commissioner. As I expressed in the commissioner selection City Council meeting on 2/25/20, my consideration and selection for this commission should represent a commitment by our City Council to work to implement a rapid transition towards a healthy future and to meet this crucial moment.

The time to act is now and we are moving far too slowly. How we should proceed is not entirely obvious, but I have faith that through working together we can come into the right relation with the lands that we call home for the next generations of life to come.

As I accept this call to duty and service to my community, I would like to honor the Patwin people who stewarded these lands before being violently removed and subjected to disease and genocide by our cultural predecessors right here in the place we now call Davis.

I would like to honor the land we now call California that was once described by early colonizers as being like the Garden of Eden, with drinkable rivers, uninterrupted oak groves from present-day Sacramento to Chico, millions of grazing elk, antelope, and one of the most biodiverse and culturally diverse places on the planet.

As I swear to uphold the constitutional rights that affirm our basic human rights, I also swear to protect clean water and ecosystems that are necessary to support life (including our own). 

I pay tribute to the original treaties of this land, particularly the Two Row Wampum Treaty which states that our people are under the authority of our laws and customs, and the indigenous peoples are under the authority of clan mothers and headsmen.

Here in Davis, we must acknowledge the history on this land and acknowledge that our position of sole governance here has come from this legacy of violent settler-colonialism and destruction of ecosystems. Though we perhaps have done better than many other places to steward the lands, we have inevitably continued this destructive historical trend to this day, often unknowingly with the best of intentions.

There is no going back, yet I believe that we must reinstate the authority of the clan mothers and headsman in these lands and work in partnership with the original stewards of these lands under the Great Law of Peace towards a bright and healthy future for us all.

In service and gratitude,
David Abramson