It’s springtime, and orange poppies, purple lupine and red paintbrush flowers color the hillsides at Juristac, a pristine hillside landscape in northern San Benito County and Southern Santa Clara County that is the site of a proposal for an open pit mining project.
In honor of Earth Day, the Luna Gallery in San Juan Bautista will host an informational evening about the history and future of Juristac. Events will take place 5-7pm April 19. Luna Gallery is located at 107 B The Alameda Ave. in San Juan Bautista.
Speakers from the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band will speak about Juristac’s cultural, spiritual and ecological importance for Indigenous people. This event accompanies the photo exhibit “Contemporary Indigenous Voices of California’s South Coast Range,” currently on display at Luna Gallery through April 27.
Located in the southern foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains where the Pajaro and San Benito rivers meet, Juristac is a landscape of grassy hillsides dotted with ancient oak trees, sycamore woodlands and natural tar springs found nowhere else in our region, says a press release from Green Foothills. Overhead, raptors including white-tailed kites and golden eagles soar.
At night time, mountain lions, coyotes and badgers roam. The Juristac landscape is ecologically important as one of the last remaining undeveloped corridors of land where wildlife can migrate between the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Diablo Range, says the press release.
Juristac also holds deep significance for the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, whose ancestors conducted religious ceremonies there for thousands of years. These traditions were disrupted during the Spanish conquest, as many Mutsun people were forcibly taken from Juristac to California’s missions. Juristac is among the last undeveloped sacred Amah Mutsun sites.
Juristac’s current owners propose building an open-pit sand-and-gravel mine, which would devastate 400 acres of this land, according to Green Foothills. The Amah Mutsun Tribal Band has partnered with Green Foothills and other environmental organizations to try to stop a mining permit from being issued.
