Pa’ashi Park: Reclaiming the Lake of California’s Tulare Lake Basin, Guided by Two-Eyed Seeing

This project investigates nature-based climate adaptation as a form of reparative planning that responds to the environmental and social damage caused by land reclamation projects during the Manifest Destiny era. The research questions ask: what are the environmental and economic implications of restoring water and habitat in a drained lakebed, and how could such a project affirm the political rights and cultural connections that local tribes have to this landscape? The project's theory of change assumes that if Indigenous Knowledge is centered and put in conversation with planning scholarship around environmental justice, climate adaptation and mitigation, and sustainable watershed management, then the realm of political possibility around our shared water future will expand in ways that are more equitable to everyone, including water itself.

Led by: Hazel O'Neil (MCP '24)

Geography: Tulare Lake basin, Kern County, California