Tara Fouch-Moore
Tara is an enrolled member of the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation (SSMN), first people of the region now encompassing Yosemite National Park and Mariposa County, California. Her mother’s lineage is descended from the Ahwahneechee of Yosemite Valley and their last great chief, Tenaya. Tara currently serves as elected Secretary for the SSMN Tribal Council and its 501(c)3 non-profit American Indian Council of Mariposa County (AICMC). She also directs the Tribe’s burgeoning Land Stewardship department.
Having been raised in the small rural community of Mariposa County, nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, Tara grew up with a deeply engrained connection to her homelands and community. She achieved a BA in Language Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and after many years away she was compelled to return home to raise her family and reconnect with her people and homelands. In doing so, she was inspired to turn her focus to landscape stewardship in an effort to honor her people’s ancestral lifeways, heal her homelands in the Sierras, and help restore her community’s role as first stewards of the land. Today, Tara represents the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation in several local partnerships and leverages these relationships to elevate her Tribe’s ability to implement programming around cultural burning, native plant restoration, indigenous first foods, pollinator habitat restoration, and remembering indigenous knowledges for the health of all our relations.