The Yak Tityu Tityu Yak Tiłhini (YTT) Northern Chumash Tribe and the City of San Luis Obispo demonstrate what meaningful tribal inclusion in local climate planning can look like when consultation is treated as relationship-building rather than procedural compliance. When the City updated its climate adaptation and safety element in 2022, a new sustainability staff member used SB 18’s tribal consultation requirement as an opportunity to deepen an existing but shallow relationship — writing YTT directly into the vegetation management and traditional ecological knowledge sections of the open space plan as leads on climate resilience work, rather than placing tribal content only in the environmental justice section.

This planning foundation enabled the region’s first cultural burn within City open space in June 2024 — a 15-acre burn on a popular hiking trail conducted in partnership with CAL FIRE and Sequoia River Lands Trust. YTT is now developing a 14-year cultural burn plan for their homelands, supported by state and conservancy grants that the planning partnership helped make accessible, with goals including native species promotion, invasive management, and community reconnection with fire.