Land collaborations with Native American tribes gain momentum, but some say agreements don't go far enough

The Sanilac Petroglyphs are in
Michigan's thumb. (Wikipedia map)

Land stewardship collaborations have increased between federal and state governments with Native American tribes who were removed from their ancestral lands, but some advocates say the pacts don't go far enough. "Known as co-management or co-stewardship, [the agreements] range from pledges to consult with tribes to full-fledged partnerships that give tribal leaders an equal seat on governing commissions," reports Alex Brown of Stateline. "While praising such efforts generally, Native leaders say the agreements have been a mixed bag in terms of granting real authority to tribes."

In 2019, the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe forged a successful collaboration agreement with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to co-manage the Sanilac Petroglyphs Historic State Park, which is home to the largest collection of petroglyphs in Michigan, Brown reports. "The partnership has helped state managers better understand the petroglyphs' meanings. . . . They're now collaborating to build a ceremonial teaching lodge." Sandra Clark, director of the Michigan History Center, told Brown: "We basically make all decisions together now. The more we learn about our partners, their culture and beliefs, the more that gets filtered into how we talk about this."

McLoyd Canyon is part of Bears Ears National Monument,
in Utah. (Photo by Rick Bowmer, AP via Stateline)

"The collaboration in Michigan is part of a growing movement to restore tribes' role in managing the lands and waters within their ancestral territories. Proponents note that many of America's most cherished public lands were established only after the displacement of the Indigenous people who called them home," Brown explains. "Last year, federal land managers signed an agreement with five tribes to co-manage Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. Those nations — the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, and the Pueblo of Zuni — form a commission that works with the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to oversee the monument. . . . Advocates say the agreement was a landmark win for tribal management. . . . [But] some believe that stolen lands like national parks should be returned outright to their original stewards."

The current administration is pushing for more land managers to build co-management relationships with tribes. "In 2021, Cabinet leaders issued a secretarial order calling for their agencies to '[m]ake agreements with Indian Tribes to collaborate in the co-stewardship of Federal lands and waters.' Since then, officials have inked numerous agreements with tribal nations," Brown reports. "The partnerships include everything from wildfire prevention work such as forest thinning and prescribed fire to protection of burial sites, restoration of stream habitat, ceremonial activities and traditional food gathering." Kristi Tapio-Harper, regional tribal relations specialist in the Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Region, told Brown: "It's unprecedented. It's given the Forest Service something tangible to sit at the table and start learning from the tribes."

U.S. Virgin Islands leaders get SPJ's Black Hole Award; Wis. lawmakers, Tenn. sheriff runners-up

The Society of Professional Journalists has named the elected leaders of the Virgin Islands of the United States the recipients of its annual Black Hole Award for their "bald and breathtaking contempt of the public’s right to know."

Jonathan Austin

Jonathan Austin of the Virgin Islands Daily News nominated the government, including Gov. Kenneth Mapp and the Legislature, saying their “lack of transparency has caused an uproar in the territory.” (As publisher and editor of the now-defunct Yancey County News in Burnsville, N.C., Austin and his wife Susan won the 2012 Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, tenacity and integrity in rural journalism, given by the publisher of The Rural Blog.)

The newspaper says the territorial legislature won't disclose how much some senators spent at a legislative conference in Seattle, and Mapp has refused to comply with the territory’s open-records law, claimed the right to alter records before release, and "retaliated against a subordinate after that person released documents showing Mapp spent excessively on travel, groceries and alcohol using a government-issued credit card," SPJ says in a news release. The Daily News played its story on the award modestly, on Page 8. To read it, click here. For examples of the paper's reporting on open-government issues, click here.

The runners-up for the Black Hole Award were:

• The Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee, which received the award in 2012. This time, it "voted along party lines to effectively gut the state’s open-records law," SPJ says. "Pressure from the media and public prompted officials to drop the measure, according to Mark Pitsch, president of SPJ’s Madison pro chapter, who submitted the nomination and said Wisconsin citizens "rose up against the changes in an almost unprecedented outpouring of opposition."
• The Sheriff’s Office in Marshall County, Tennessee, nominated by Prison Legal News, which "had trouble obtaining records about the county jail's contract for phone service," SPJ says. The sheriff at the time, Norman Dalton, demanded that the paper make the request in person, contrary to state law. Told that, Dalton started ignoring the requests, so Prison Legal News got a court order releasing the contract and won reimbursement of its attorney's fees.

Other finalists for the award were the Community Services District of Cambria, Calif.; the Colorado Judicial Branch; Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback; Los Angeles City Hall; the New York State Police; the Trans Pacific Partnership; the Wyoming Legislature and the New York State Thruway Authority.