Environment and Natural Resources

Thumbnail or cover image
Umatilla Basin Salmon Recovery Project

Umatilla Basin Salmon Recovery Project

The Umatilla Basin Salmon Recovery Project has successfully restored salmon to the Umatilla River, where they had been absent for nearly 70 years, while also protecting the local irrigated agriculture economy. Partnering with local irrigators and community leaders, the tribe undertook a…

Thumbnail or cover image
Gila River Indian Community Air Quality Program

Gila River Indian Community Air Quality Program

In recent years, tribal governments in the United States have passed sophisticated laws and regulations to manage social and economic development in their communities. Although air quality is an important aspect of both economic growth and human health, very few Native nations have successfully…

Thumbnail or cover image
Zuni Eagle Sanctuary

Zuni Eagle Sanctuary

Responding to ceremonial needs for eagle feathers, in 1999, the Pueblo opened the first-ever Native American owned and operated eagle sanctuary. The award-winning facility provides a source of molted eagle feathers for Zuni while at the same time reviving the ancient practice of eagle husbandry.…

Thumbnail or cover image
Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council

Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council

The Yukon River runs for 2,300 miles across the northwestern corner of North America. Many generations of Native people have drawn on its waters for food, drink, and other necessities. Recent development and changes in land use have affected the quality of Yukon River water. In 1997, chiefs and…

Thumbnail or cover image
Water Quality Standards (Sandia)

Water Quality Standards (Sandia)

Responding to the severe contamination of the Rio Grande River that threatens human health and ceremonial uses of the water, the Pueblo was awarded "treatment as state" status in 1990. Subsequently, the Pueblo developed and implemented US EPA approved water quality standards that give it control…

Thumbnail or cover image
White Mountain Apache Wildlife and Recreation Program

White Mountain Apache Wildlife and Recreation Program

The White Mountain Apache Wildlife and Recreation Program fulfills the dual role of performing all wildlife conservation and management and serving as a self-sustaining business enterprise based on the Tribe’s recreation/tourism industry. The program’s effective wildlife management techniques have…

Thumbnail or cover image
Oneida Nation Farms

Oneida Nation Farms

In the 1820s, a portion of the Oneida people of New York moved to Wisconsin, where they took up their accustomed practices as farmers. Over the next hundred years, the Oneida Nation lost nearly all its lands and much of its own agrarian tradition. In 1978, the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin established…

Thumbnail or cover image
Trust Resource Management (Salish and Kootenai)

Trust Resource Management (Salish and Kootenai)

For more than three decades, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) have been building capable governing institutions and taking over management of resources and programs previously managed by outsiders. Recognizing that self-management both allows the tribal government to determine its…

Thumbnail or cover image
Red Lake Walleye Recovery Project

Red Lake Walleye Recovery Project

Clearly demonstrating that tribal nations not only have the ability to make large scale achievements in resource conservation, but that they can do so with unprecedented success, the Red Lake Walleye Fishery Recovery Project has brought the walleye fish population back from virtual extinction to an…

Thumbnail or cover image
Miccosukee Tribe Section 404 Permitting Program

Miccosukee Tribe Section 404 Permitting Program

The reservation lands of the Miccosukee Tribe lie largely within the Everglades National Park. Development on these lands is subject to elaborate regulations by a host of federal agencies that hindered development and other uses of their lands by the Miccosukee people, including the building of…

Thumbnail or cover image
Navajo Nation Archaeology Department Training Programs

Navajo Nation Archaeology Department Training Programs

The Navajo Nation Archaeology Department was created in 1977 to facilitate historic preservation on Navajo Nation lands as mandated by both US and tribal government legislation. In 1988 and again in 1993, the Department expanded to include training programs, undertaken in partnership with Northern…

Thumbnail or cover image
Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission

Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission

Charged with the overall management of its member tribes’ fisheries resources and advocating for the protection of treaty rights, the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission’s (CRITFC) programs include fisheries enforcement, policy development and litigation support, fish marketing, and…

Thumbnail or cover image
The Hopi Land Team

The Hopi Land Team

Reclaiming traditional lands has been a primary concern of the Hopi Tribe for the last century. In 1996, significant land purchases became possible under the terms of a settlement with the United States. The tribal government was faced with the problem of developing a plan for reacquiring lands,…

Thumbnail or cover image
Minnesota 1837 Ceded Territory Conservation Code (Mille Lacs)

Minnesota 1837 Ceded Territory Conservation Code (Mille Lacs)

In 1997, the Band successfully developed a conservation code that enables the Tribe to exercise its treaty rights to hunt, fish, and gather. The Code sets out detailed hunting and fishing regulations for Band members that protect the natural resources while allowing for the continuation of…

Thumbnail or cover image
The Chippewa Flowage Joint Agency Management Plan

The Chippewa Flowage Joint Agency Management Plan

The Joint Agency Management Plan brings together three governments — the Lac Courte Oreilles Band, the State of Wisconsin, and the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service — to co-manage the Chippewa Flowage, a 15,300-acre reservoir created in 1923 that inundated a tribal village. Taking into…

Thumbnail or cover image
Idaho Gray Wolf Recovery Program (Nez Perce)

Idaho Gray Wolf Recovery Program (Nez Perce)

By developing a plan that includes monitoring, outreach, species management/control, and research, the Tribe is now leading the statewide recovery of the endangered Gray Wolf. The recovery program, which meets the guidelines developed by the US Fish and Wildlife Services, has resulted in a wolf…

Thumbnail or cover image
We Are the Stewards: Indigenous-Led Fisheries Innovation in North America

We Are the Stewards: Indigenous-Led Fisheries Innovation in North America

This paper offers an overview of the current state of Indigenous-led fisheries management in the United States and Canada. It summarizes major trends in Indigenous-led fisheries innovation in North America and presents common keys and challenges to the success of these efforts. It chronicles three…

Thumbnail or cover image
Protecting the Fish and Eating Them, Too: Impacts of the Endangered Species Act on Tribal Water Use

Protecting the Fish and Eating Them, Too: Impacts of the Endangered Species Act on Tribal Water Use

The scarcity of water in the American West and the increased demands for the resource have created much tension of late between tribes, endangered species advocates, and the holders of water rights granted by the states for non-native consumptive uses. The over-allocation of water by state…

Thumbnail or cover image
Implementing the Federal Endangered Species Act in Indian Country: The Promise and Reality of Secretarial Order 3206

Implementing the Federal Endangered Species Act in Indian Country: The Promise and Reality of Secretarial Order 3206

Reviews the key requirements of the Endangered Species Act, pertinent executive orders, and Department of the Interior Secretarial Order 3206; discusses the differences tribes can make by creating and implementing their own habitat management plants, as alternatives to designation of critical…

Thumbnail or cover image
Yukaana Development Corporation (Louden Tribal Council)

Yukaana Development Corporation (Louden Tribal Council)

The Louden Tribal Council created the Yukaana Development Corporation in 1998 to address the concerns of environmental degradation and environmental justice through training and employment. Under a contract with the US Air Force, the tribally owned Corporation cleans contamination caused by a local…