NNI and Harvard Project Research

Thumbnail or cover image
Newtok Relocation Effort

Newtok Relocation Effort

Scientists and politicians spend hours debating the facts of climate change, but in many places damaging changes to the local environment are already a reality. In the past decade, more and more human settlements have been threatened by catastrophic flooding, wildfires, or drought caused by…

Thumbnail or cover image
Leech Lake Joint Tribal-State Jurisdiction

Leech Lake Joint Tribal-State Jurisdiction

Across Indian Country tribes are strengthening and better defining their governments in order to meet the unique needs of their communities. As Native nations work to expand their sovereign powers, tribal justice departments can play a critical role in achieving those goals. In the early 2000s, the…

Thumbnail or cover image
Leadership Institute at the Santa Fe Indian School

Leadership Institute at the Santa Fe Indian School

Founded in 1997, the Leadership Institute at the Santa Fe Indian School aims to create a dynamic learning environment in which community members not only learn and teach, but are able to actively contribute to the success of their nations. Four themes guide the Institute’s work: leadership,…

Thumbnail or cover image
Why beggar thy Indian neighbor? The case for tribal primacy in taxation in Indian country

Why beggar thy Indian neighbor? The case for tribal primacy in taxation in Indian country

The law governing taxation in Indian country is a mess. The accretion of common law precedents and the general tendency of states to assert primacy over the taxation of non-Indians create absurd outcomes. This article makes the case three ways. The argument based on the law shows that…

Thumbnail or cover image
Treaty Rights/National Forest Memorandum of Understanding, Tribes of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission

Treaty Rights/National Forest Memorandum of Understanding, Tribes of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission

The Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, a tribally chartered intertribal organization, negotiated a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the U.S. Forest Service that recognizes and implements treaty guaranteed hunting, fishing and gathering rights under tribal regulations and…

Thumbnail or cover image
Oneida Advocacy Through Investment Holdings

Oneida Advocacy Through Investment Holdings

Thirty years ago, most Native nations in the U.S. had few financial resources available for investment. With the passage of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (Public Law 93-638) in 1975, many tribes began to reclaim the governance of their nations – and with such assertions…

Thumbnail or cover image
Swinomish Cooperative Land Use Program

Swinomish Cooperative Land Use Program

Based on a memorandum of agreement between the Tribe and Skagit County, the Swinomish Cooperative Land Use Program provides a framework for conducting permitting activities within the boundaries of the "checkerboarded" reservation and offers a forum for resolving potential conflicts. The process,…

Thumbnail or cover image
Chickaloon Village: Ya Ne Dah Ah School

Chickaloon Village: Ya Ne Dah Ah School

Dedicated to giving community youth the skills necessary for functioning in a modern world while retaining and facilitating traditional knowledge and practices, the Ya Ne Dah Ah is Alaska’s only tribally owned and operated full-time primary school and day care facility. Located in a one-room…

Thumbnail or cover image
Rosebud Sioux Tribal Education Department and Code

Rosebud Sioux Tribal Education Department and Code

Responding to disproportionately low academic attendance, achievement, and attainment levels, the Tribe created an education department (TED) in 1990 and developed a Code that regulates and coordinates various aspects of the tribal schools, public schools, and federally-funded Indian education…

Thumbnail or cover image
2000 Honoring Nations: Tribes of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Management

Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission's Treaty Rights/National Forest MOU

The Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC), a tribally chartered intertribal agency, negotiated a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the US Forest Service that both recognizes and implements treaty-guaranteed hunting, fishing, and gathering rights under tribal regulations and…

Thumbnail or cover image
Fond du Lac's Pharmacy On-Line Billing Initiative

Fond du Lac's Pharmacy On-Line Billing Initiative

In 1995, faced with rising pharmaceutical costs, limited Indian Health Service (IHS) funds, and an inability to bill and collect from third party insurers, the Human Services Division contracted with a private sector firm to design and implement a computerized pharmacy billing system. The first of…

Thumbnail or cover image
Citizen Potawatomi Nation Constitutional Reform

Citizen Potawatomi Nation Constitutional Reform

Tribal governments across the United States work tirelessly to provide their citizens with effective systems of governance. After years of failed assimilation attempts, the federal government imposed blanket political systems upon almost all tribes regardless of those systems’ effectiveness or…

Thumbnail or cover image
The Ojibwe Language Program: Teaching Mille Lacs Band Youth the Ojibwe Language to Foster a Stronger Sense of Cultural Identity and Sovereignty

The Ojibwe Language Program: Teaching Mille Lacs Band Youth the Ojibwe Language to Foster a Stronger Sense of Cultural Identity and Sovereignty

As part of its effort to assimilate American Indians into mainstream society, the federal government launched an assault on Native languages. For example, in the 1890s the government built twenty-five off-reservation boarding schools to which many Indian children were forcibly…

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
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
Winnebago's Whirling Thunder Wellness Program

Winnebago's Whirling Thunder Wellness Program

To prevent and control the devastating effects of diabetes and substance abuse, in 1995, the Winnebago Tribe created the Whirling Thunder Wellness Program, which raises community awareness about diabetes and substance abuse, administers primary and secondary prevention services, and encourages…

Thumbnail or cover image
The Ya Ne Dah Ah School (Chickaloon): Melding Traditional Teachings with Modern Curricula

The Ya Ne Dah Ah School (Chickaloon): Melding Traditional Teachings with Modern Curricula

For many generations, education in American Indian/Alaskan Native (AI/AN) communities has been controlled by sources external to the communities and the people themselves. Large bureaucratic agencies, such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) or public school systems overseen…

Thumbnail or cover image
Coquille: Southwest Oregon Research Project (SWORP)

Coquille: Southwest Oregon Research Project (SWORP)

Driven by the belief that possessing historical documents and archival collections is essential for cultural self-determination, the Coquille Indian Tribe partnered with the University of Oregon and the Smithsonian Institution to launch the Southwest Oregon Research Project (SWORP) in 1995. Through…

Thumbnail or cover image
The Menominee Community Center of Chicago: Creating an Innovative Partnership Between Urban and Reservation Communities

The Menominee Community Center of Chicago: Creating an Innovative Partnership Between Urban and Reservation Communities

Over half of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin lives off-reservation. Regrettably, the ties between the Menominee’s reservation and urban populations, like those between the split populations of so many Indian nations, have been tenuous for decades. In 1994, a group…

Thumbnail or cover image
The Two-Plus-Two-Plus-Two Program: Building an Educational Bridge to the Future for the Youth of the Hopi Tribe from High School to College and Beyond

The Two-Plus-Two-Plus-Two Program: Building an Educational Bridge to the Future for the Youth of the Hopi Tribe from High School to College and Beyond

Over the last 30 years, Native nations across North America have been taking control of their educational systems in the belief that American Indian “self-determination and local control [are] means of cultural preservation and growth.” Disturbed by the low achievement scores…