environmental stewardship

Story of Igiugig: Native Sovereignty in Alaska

Producer
Eric Henson, Patrick J. Lynch and Erica Wood
Year

This short film looks at how a sovereign Native people are planning for the future, as told through three short chapters:

Chapter 1: Nunaput (Our Homelands)

Chapter 2: Capricaraq (Persistence)

Chapter 3: Pinarqut (Possibility)

Native Nations
Resource Type
Topics
Citation

Lynch, P. (2021, November 5). Story of Igiugig: Native Sovereignty in Alaska [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et6StffUoU4

Coastal Guardian Watchmen Programs: A Business Case

Year

As the original stewards of their territories, the Coastal First Nations along British Columbia’s North Coast, Central Coast and Haida Gwaii have been working to establish and grow Guardian Watchmen programs, in some cases for several decades. These programs have come to play an important role in contemporary environmental stewardship. Though they differ from Nation to Nation, the mandate of the programs is to safeguard the Coastal First Nations’ natural and cultural resources, so that these Nations can continue to sustain viable, healthy communities for generations to come. Guardian Watchmen programs require financial support from their Nations and other funding partners. As such, it is reasonable to ask: are they worth it? To help answer this question, a business case analysis of Coastal Guardian Watchmen programs was undertaken. Key findings are included in this report, which examines the net value of program costs and benefits from the perspective of the First Nations that have these programs.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Valuing Coastal Guardian Watchmen Programs: A Business Case. EcoPlan International, The Coastal Steward Network, and TNC Canada. Vancouver, British Columbia. October 4, 2016. Report. (https://coastalfirstnations.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Valuing-Coastal-Guardian-Watchmen-Programs-A-Business-Case.pdf, accessed March 24, 2023)

Coast Salish Gathering

Year

Ecosystems in many parts of North America are under severe stress. Pollution, the overuse of natural resources, and habitat destruction threaten local flora and fauna. Conservation attempts often fall short because they target one species of site within an ecosystem. The Coast Salish Gathering demonstrates a more successful approach. It is a forum created by the Coast Salish peoples of the United States and canada for a trans-boundary integrated response to environmental stress. Representatives of the Coast Salish peoples living in the watersheds of the Salish sea come together at the annual Gathering where, using a traditional consensus decision-making process, they determine effective environmental strategies, policies, and practices for the entire Salish Sea homeland. Through the Gathering, the Coast Salish speak with on voice to protect the natural resources that are central to the sustainability of their identity, culture, and lifestyle.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

"Coast Salish Gathering." Honoring Nations: 2010 Honoree. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 2011. Report.

Oneida Nation Farms

Year

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 the Oneida Nation Farms, beginning with only 150 acres of land and 25 head of cattle. Today, the operation includes over 8,000 acres of agricultural and conservation lands; 400 cattle; 100 buffalo; and major crops such as soybeans and corn, and diverse produce such as apples, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, snap beans, squash, and pumpkins. Oneida Nation Farms is a successful, profitable enterprise based on sustainable development, environmental stewardship, respect for the value of whole foods, and a healthy diet for Oneida citizens. Founded on the philosophy that the current generation must consider the impact of its actions on the next seven generations, Oneida Nation Farms nourishes the Oneida people in multiple ways.

Resource Type
Citation

"Oneida Nation Farms". Honoring Nations: 2005 Honoree. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 2006. Report.

Permissions

This Honoring Nations report is featured on the Indigenous Governance Database with the permission of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.

Bad River Recycling/Solid Waste Department

Year

The Bad River Recycling/Solid Waste Department created environmentally sound practices of managing and disposing of waste generated on the reservation, ending cycles of harm to tribal citizens, lands, and water. Historically, waste was not only hazardous, but noticeable and abundant on reservation lands despite cultural creation and migration stories stressing environmental stewardship. Now, through education, incentives, and new waste management systems, the Bad River Band citizens boast a clean, safe, and green environment.

Resource Type
Citation

"Bad River Recycling/Solid Waste Department." Honoring Nations: 2006 Honoree. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 2007. Report.

Permissions

This Honoring Nations report is featured on the Indigenous Governance Database with the permission of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.

Honoring Nations: Steve Terry and Rory Feeney: Miccosukee Tribe Section 404 Permitting Program

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

Miccosukee Tribe Land Resources Manager Steve Terry and Fish and Wildlife Director Rory Feeney present an overview of the Miccosukee Tribe Section 404 Permitting Program to the Honoring Nations Board of Governors in conjunction with the 2005 Honoring Nations Awards.

Resource Type
Citation

Feeney, Rory, and Steve Terry. "Miccosukee Tribe Section 404 Permitting Program." Honoring Nations Awards event. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Tulsa, Oklahoma. November 1, 2005. Presentation.

Steve Terry:

"First I'd like to thank the board of governors for letting us come up and give our presentation and for considering our program. Chairman Cypress of the Miccosukee Tribe regrets that he cannot be here today but he's still down in Florida coordinating the relief effort to the tribe due to the recent hurricane that we had, Hurricane Wilma.

I'd like to give a little history about the Miccosukee Tribe. The Miccosukee Tribe has always been a separate tribe from the Seminole Tribe. If you read the war accounts, the Seminole Indian wars in Florida, you always see that they refer to the Miccosukee and Seminole war chiefs. The Miccosukees ended up in the Everglades from their homelands in north Florida and south Georgia as a result of the Seminole Indian wars and to escape the Indian removal policy of the United States government. The State of Florida created a 5,000-acre Indian reservation down in the mainland portion of Monroe County in 1917, then in 1935 when they started talking about forming Everglades National Park, promptly gave that reservation as part of the park. The state then created a 110,000-acre reservation in Broward County, but did not consult with the tribe. So needless to say, no tribal members ever moved up to Broward County, they stayed on the old state Indian reservation down in Monroe County. They stayed there until the late 1940s when Monroe County Sheriff's deputies and Everglades Park rangers forced the tribe from the park. The tribe relocated to Tamiami Trail where they reside today. So they used to live up here in north Florida and south Georgia, slowly working their way down the State of Florida through the result of the Indian wars and ended up down here in Monroe County where the Indian reservation was and actually had to relocate right about in there as a result of the park rangers forcing them out. And you can see that a little bit better in this slide.

The reason why I wanted to bring that up is has to do with what we're talking about today is our Section 404 general permit. What a 404 permit is a permit that you get from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to place fill-in wetlands on federal land. What a general permit is, that's a permit that the Corps issues to an entity. It follows the parameters agreed upon between the entity and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It allows an entity to place fill-in wetlands with much less time involved, but normally the general permit is still administered by the Corps of Engineers. Mitigation is part of the general permit process. Mitigation is where you make up for the wetlands that you destroyed by filling them by either creating new wetlands or enhancing wetlands. The entity is responsible for following the terms of the general permit. The reason why we had to have a general permit? Tribal housing pads increased in size to accommodate larger homes. 404 permits were taking six months to several years to be approved by the Corps of Engineers. More fill requests were being submitted on a monthly basis into our offices and tribal members were wanting additional fill to increase their house pad and improve their quality of life. They wanted to build a garden, they wanted to have a yard for their children to play in, they wanted to be able to put a chickee up in their backyard, which is the traditional home of the Miccosukees made out of cypress poles and palm fronds. So this is what a typical residential pad used to look like on the left. If you'll see on the right, we've actually increased the size of that pad tremendously. This is what the old style of home is that we used to build on the reservation and now we build this type of a house that's on the reservation, thus requiring the need for much larger pad.

The contents of our general permit: well, we had a permit process in place before applying for the general permit from the Corps of Engineers. Because of this the Corps of Engineers actually allowed the tribe the responsibility to administer and enforce the permit and to the best of my knowledge we're the first tribe that's ever received a general permit from the Corps of Engineers. The terms allow the tribe to issue 404 permits to tribal members in a specific area and for a limited amount of fill. The tribal members are responsible for mitigation and implementation of permit terms. The Real Estate Services Department administers the permit and the Water Resources Department enforces the permit.

So how does our permitting process work? Well, first and foremost the tribal constitution gives the tribe the authority to issue permits. So a tribal member would come into our office and request fill-in wetlands for their property to Real Estate Services. My office would go out, we'd measure property boundaries, we'd stake out a fill area, we'd submit a site drawing, we'd draft the permit and we'd give that to the tribe's business council for their approval. Once the business council approved the permits, we would issue them to the tribal members and we'd also catalogue those so we could do a quarterly update to the Corps of Engineers on the amount of permits that we issued. The tribal member would come in and they would pay mitigation costs, they would acquire and they would also install silt screen.

Rory Feeney:

"My name is Rory Feeney from the Miccosukee Water Resources Office. Part of the Water Resources Department's responsibilities is to monitor and enforce best management practices, or BMPs, of the permit. We meet with the contractor. If we can't meet with the contractor, we will at least phone call them and make sure that he understands the conditions of the permit. Our office will go out and inspect the silt screen or turbidity barriers -- I'll explain what that is in a moment -- and make sure that the silt screen is installed at the right location and in the right way. After the inspection is included, an approval or disapproval will be sent to the homeowner. If it's approved and only once it's approved, the tribal member may then place fill in wetlands or fill on fill. During the construction activity the Water Resources Office continues to monitor the fill activity to make sure that it's in compliance with the permit boundary. And the tribe's law and order code grants jurisdiction to enforce these permit terms. So that's what gives us the structure and foundation to go out and enforce these things.

This is a copy of a typical permit that goes out to the homeowner. You can't really read it, it's small print, but what is on the first page is the cost of mitigation and where to pay that mitigation and the second page shows you step by step what the conditions of the permit are, how much the mitigation is going to cost, that the trash must be cleaned out of the house around the construction area before the fill is done, and that silt screen needs to be installed. This is a typical schematic of a house out there with detailing what the boundaries are and where the silt screen needs to be installed. This is a handout that is also included in the permit package that shows you step by step how to install it and the correct way and incorrect way to install it with pictures on each side showing such. We also include an erosion control handout, why it's important to control the slopes of your house pad with sod and seed. This is that silt screen, a close up of the silt screen that I was telling you about, turbidity monitor. What this does is it prevents silt from getting into the environment and impacting the local flora and fauna. There's another shot. And here's the sod and seed working in tandem with the silt screen there to decrease and minimize impacts onto the environment.

The mitigation Steve was mentioning takes place on tribal land, one-to-one ratio. For one acre of land that's filled, one acre of natural environment is enhanced. By that I mean we cut down, we contract a company to cut down melaleuca trees that have grown in abundance in south Florida. This is pretty much a mono culture of melaleuca trees. They overcrowd natural vegetation and it can smother out the lower vegetation on the bottom. We cut that down and restore it back to what once was...what this should look like is a saw grass, saw palmetto and hardwood ecosystem with cypress and other vegetation."

Steve Terry:

"The benefits of this permitting process: first and foremost it allows the tribe to exercise sovereignty over its own lands and its members. The quality of life for tribal members has improved considerably. Section 106 of the Clean Water Act is being met and our permit process is much faster, usually about one month when before it would take anywhere from six months to a couple of years to get a permit. The Corps of Engineers and EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] now have much less paperwork and less workload. And the government-to-government interaction improved substantially so we no longer end up having to fight the Corps of Engineers like we used to do in the past. And that concludes our presentation."

Amy Besaw:

"Questions from the board?"

Duane Champagne:

"Well, I'd like to congratulate you on the program. I'd like to know your relationship to the tribal government. This is an authority within the constitution and is that a method that has worked very well for this kind of permitting process and how much autonomy do they give you?"

Steve Terry:

"Well, it works very well for us and it was part of the constitution of the tribe that allowed the tribe to manage their own lands. So we used that section from the constitution to start with this. And every permit that we have goes before the tribe's business council and they approve the permit themselves. Now they can either approve a permit, disapprove a permit or tell us to go back and get more information and they have done all three things to us. So it works very well for us this way. And the thing I need to emphasize on this, we're bringing this up as being like just for fill-in wetlands. We don't do just fill-in wetlands. We do all kinds of permits from our office. We do fill-on-fill permits, we do fill agreements with tribal members, we have right away agreements, if they want to put in a driveway, put up a fence, put up a little shop that they want to do, they come to our office and get a permit for that and we go to the business council for their approval first."

Heather Kendall-Miller:

"One of the things that I was intrigued by, obviously what you've achieved is very significant in taking over such a major permitting program from the Corps of Engineers. And we're all...I come from Alaska and stuff and so one of the things that I was impressed by is the fact that the Everglades as far as I know is very sensitive environmentally, and I really expected that your tribe would have had some difficulty dealing with for instance environmental proponents or non-members of your community that would have concerns about the tribe issuing its own permits. Can you explain how it is that somehow you bypassed that kind of controversy?"

Steve Terry:

"When we applied for this general permit, the Corps of Engineers had to put it out for public comments and they put it out there for public comment and we issue drawings that showed where -- if we were going to fill all the areas that we could between all the homes and go back for a specific length that we were doing that -- it would cover about 54 acres of wetlands out on the tribe. And that went out for public comment. The Corps of Engineers did not receive one comment from anybody on this permit application and the only reason why I think that happened is because the Miccosukee Tribe has always been at the forefront of Everglades restoration. We gave the board a copy of our water quality standards and we had some back in the back and obviously Rory and I didn't bring near enough because they disappeared in like 15 minutes. But we have the strictest water quality standards in the State of Florida. We also issued our own 401 water-quality certification which came up with the whole thing about we had to put up turbidity screens, erosion control and what the tribal members have to do. And I think based on the fact that we did our own water-quality certification with conditions and the Corps conditioned the permit is why we didn't have any comments."

Heather Kendall-Miller:

"As a follow up, do you have non-members residing in homes applying for permits on tribal land as well?"

Steve Terry:

"No, there are no non-members that live on the reservation, that own homes on the reservation, so it's all just for the tribal members that live there."

Honoring Nations: Cedric Kuwaninvaya: The Hopi Land Team

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

Former Chairman of the Hopi Land Team Cedric Kuwaninvaya presents an overview of the tribal subcommittee's work to the Honoring Nations Board of Governors in conjunction with the 2005 Honoring Nations Awards.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Kuwaninvaya, Cedric. "The Hopi Land Team." Honoring Nations Awards event. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Tulsa, Oklahoma. November 1, 2005. Presentation.

Cedric Kuwaninvaya:

"[Hopi language]. Greetings from the Hopi Tribe to the Honoring Nations Advisory Board and honored guests. It is with great honor and privilege to deliver our final presentation to you. The Hopi Land Team is a subcommittee of the Hopi Tribal Council and has delegated authority to develop land policy, to explore and administer the best and most favorable uses of our natural and water resources and to seek and purchase viable business and land opportunities. I would like to recognize the current Hopi Land Team members: Ms. Marilyn Masayesva from the village of Bacavi who's our Vice Chair, Denny Humetewa from the upper village of Moenkopi, Jack Harding, Jr. from the village of Kykotsmovi, John Polela from the village of First Mesa, Leon Carew from the village of Mishongovi, and Wayne Taylor, Jr. who is the Chairman of the Hopi Tribe. My name is Cedric Kuwaninvaya. I am from the great village of Sipaulovi and the Chairman for the Land Team here.

A fundamental principle consistently exercised by the Hopi Tribal Council is our innate responsibility to preserving our homeland as an act of inherent sovereignty. As the original inhabitants of the isolated desert terrain of our aboriginal lands in the Southwest, the Hopi Land Team has focused its efforts on the restoration of our aboriginal lands, to restore free access to shrines, culture and religious sites balanced with contemporary goals of economic development and tribal self-sufficiency. The Hopi Tribe will soon be transferring up to 420,264 acres of acquired lands into trust. Since the passage of the Hopi-Navajo Land Settlement Act in 1996, much thought and planning has taken place to select fee, state and U.S. Forest, BLM lands that lie within our aboriginal lands. Although these lands do not encompass the original extent of our aboriginal lands, the acquisition of these lands symbolically replenish lost lands and more importantly regain our inherent land stewardship responsibility handed down since time immemorial. Moreover, these acts of the Hopi Tribe strategically lay the path to search new opportunities for economic development and to build a promising future for the Hopi people.

The purchase of lands is balanced with the purchases of business concerns such as commercial retail properties, a cattle-ranching business providing a product to the premium beef market, a bed-and-breakfast business, and a full truck stop serving the traveling public and commercial fleets off Interstate 40. Since the year 1998, these businesses have returned approximately three million dollars in profits to the general fund of the Hopi Tribe, which comprise approximately two percent of the annual general fund budget each year. The funds are then allocated to the Hopi villages for village projects such as elder and youth programs and to the Hopi tribal government for its operations. A comprehensive land management plan will govern the development of the newly acquired lands. The resources on these lands include hunting, fishing, boating, cattle grazing leases, recreation, power line rights of ways, management of cultural sites, a utility-scale wind energy farm and a potential utility-scale solar energy farm. These new economic development opportunities will generate revenue, create jobs, and enhance the portfolio of the Hopi Tribe.

The long-term goals of the Hopi Tribe and the plans to manage the development of the newly acquired lands and business concerns will be overseen by the Hopi Economic Development Corporation, a chartered corporation. In addition, our Wildlife Endowment Fund will provide the core funding for wildlife management on all Hopi lands. More importantly, as the picture shows, the most significant opportunity is the strengthening of the Hopi Tribe's ability to continue the practice of long-held religious, cultural and traditional practices. As the lands acquired formally aboriginal lands include eagle shrines, cultural sites, sacred trails, access to herbs, plants and wildlife used in our religious ceremonies. The future of the Hopi rests on its resources. Therefore the Land Team drives forward the concept that land is the foundation for Hopi beliefs and values and in the modern context an investment in the future. The growth and stability of the Hopi people rests on the proper activities of the Hopi tribal government and the Land Team serving as the enforcer for the tribe's responsibilities and vision. We remain committed to preserving our homeland and stand strong on the principle of preserving the good things of Hopi life and dealing with the modern problems with the United States government and with the outside world. [Hopi language]."

Alfreda Mitre:

"First of all, I want to say I'm very jealous of the Hopi Tribe's exclusive right to identify and select and purchase land and then have that land transferred into a trust status. Not many tribes have that opportunity. As a tribe, a small tribe in Nevada, we struggle very hard to acquire our traditional lands back so I want to first of all congratulate the Hopi Tribe and the team here for all of their work. Out in...throughout the United States you have tribes that are purchasing back their homelands and often are accused of ‘reservation shopping,' looking for convenient locations for economic development. Could you elaborate a little bit on how the selection of lands to be purchased or acquired are made?"

Cedric Kuwaninvaya:

"In Hopi, our elders have always told us where our lands had extended previously into the four western states and so with that knowledge when we were having a dispute with our neighboring tribe there, we had this dispute for over 100 years, and how we got acquisition of our lands back, we went to court and fought over this trying to get our aboriginal lands back. So through a congressional act we acquired...the Congress allowed us to get up to 500,000 acres that we could put into trust. So through the congressional mandate, that's what happened with our tribe. And once when we were given the authority to go out buying land, we looked at the land, what was on the land -- including water rights -- because we needed water to survive and look at that in terms of putting an investment into the future for our young people."

Alfreda Mitre:

"The next part of the question is, given that there aren't too many tribes that have the same opportunity that the Hopi's have, what advice would you have to tribes in terms, should this opportunity become available to them, what advice do you have for them?"

Cedric Kuwaninvaya:

"I guess the advice I have for them is make sure you know your culture, your traditions because everything hinges on that and the places where you're going to identify that maybe once identified to your people. Be aggressive, pursue it because we all know that the federal government took our lands away and because of treaties or other tribes that are under the IRS or IRA [Indian Reorganization Act], they owe us a lot so I would advise that the people in the tribes pursue it aggressively."

Elsie Meeks:

"I have a question for you. Congratulations on being one of the finalists and for the work you've done. What do you see as the next phase in this process? What are your next goals? Is it more land purchase, is it trying to get businesses profitable or what..."

Cedric Kuwaninvaya:

"Right now, we have a limit of acquiring up to 500,000 acres to put into trust so we're still going to be looking for lands cause it's still available to us. The other part is also looking at economic opportunities. Right now we have established an economic development corporation and all of the purchases that we've made will transition into that corporation, so they're the experts at doing business so that part will be transitioned. The other part is, yes, a lot of education needs to be done at our local level because all of these years we've had our lands taken away and the Hopi people have been stretched out, put a lot of money into trying to get our lands back, a lot of time and effort has been put into that. Now they need to feel relaxed and there needs to be a lot of educating at the local village level whereby we tell them, ‘Yes, we are gaining our aboriginal lands back and you can make use of it of how you made uses of them before, a long time ago.' There's still a lot of challenges and opportunities out there for the Hopi people."

Oren Lyons:

"The land dispute between Navajo and Hopi is an old one. What was it that made the breakthrough to work together? How did you do that?"

Cedric Kuwaninvaya:

"There's one that's called the 1882 Land Case. That one we went to Congress to settle. Then there's another one that's called the 1934 Case. That one has been in court for a lot of years, but I think what the tribes decided to do was rather than having the court settle it because the courts don't know how we live on Hopi, how the Navajos live their lives. We came together with the Navajo Tribe and said, ‘This is our land, these are our people, we know what's going on with our lives. We don't want the federal government or the courts to settle this.' So we came together and we...what happened from that was we had a compact on the different areas where the tribe goes into the other tribe's lands to get herbs or do religious activities there. So that's how this one came about and right now the Hopi Tribe has approved the 1934 compact and it's before the Navajo tribal council. So if they approve it then that's the end of our land disputes that we have."

David Gipp:

"Where is the bed-and-breakfast ranch that John Wayne used to own?"

Cedric Kuwaninvaya:

"That's located in Eager, by Springerville in Arizona. I understand John Wayne turned several times in his grave when he heard that the Indians had conquered his ranch."

Honoring Nations: Tim Mentz and Loretta Stone: Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Monitors Program

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

Tim Mentz and Loretta Stone of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Monitors Program present an overview of the program's work to the Honoring Nations Board of Governors in conjunction with the 2005 Honoring Nations Awards.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Mentz, Tim and Loretta Stone. "Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Monitors Program." Honoring Nations Awards event. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Tulsa, Oklahoma. November 1, 2005. Presentation.

Loretta Stone:

"In the year 2000, the Tribal Monitors Program was instituted and partially funded through a programmatic agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers. The Tribal Monitors cover 2.3 million acres of land within the Standing Rock Reservation, which includes land covering two states, North and South Dakota. The sites we protect, survey and document are varied. Sites included are archaeological, which are burial, spiritual, sacred, village and massacre sites; historic, which would include Pre Pick-Sloan Dam; and paleontology, which includes at least 11 dinosaur sites all within Hell Creek Formation. Of these 11 sites, Tribal Monitors have discovered four. We have 66 documented village sites and the oldest one on Standing Rock is known as Potts. This village is estimated to be between 11,000 and 14,000 years old. Because of the site's documents age and it is along the river, it is a vulnerable site. This site is layered upon previous villages spanning thousands of years so this draws serious looters. Most of our villages run along the bank of the Missouri River. Ensuring that these sites are protected and treated with respect consumes a lot of our time but there are also numerous sites within the interior of Standing Rock that require our attention as well. The elders that we rely on have shared knowledge and purpose regarding effigies and inlaid sites. Their construction was and is the foundation of our spirituality. The determination of our spiritual leaders has withstood hundreds of years of weather, cattle, looting and neglect. Our spiritual people made sure that they had left visual reminders of our obligations to ourselves as well as our people. The elders within our communities have helped the Tribal Monitors understand the history and the stories associated with each of these sites. With regards to documented effigies, we have three turtles, one salamander and five snakes. The 400 documented inlaid sites consist of constellations, ring sites, rattles, medicine wheels and sundials to name a few. All of these particular sites held powerful spiritual reminders for all that utilized them. They serve as markers of where we are spiritually and where we need to be. They are presently being cared for by family and tribal members, just as they had been for hundreds of years. They are fed and prayed with perpetuating the cycle of spirituality. The Tribal Monitors have documented 10 individual massacre sites. These sites don't contain one or two burials but hundreds. These sites are particularly vulnerable because of the documented notoriety. Documented massacres within Standing Rock include but are not limited to the Crow, Arikara and Sioux Bands. We as Tribal Monitors keep a close eye on these sites because they are river sites with easy accessibility. We have 40 documented burial sites and the largest is Rocky Ridge. This site contains over 1,000 burials spanning over two miles of interconnecting hilltops. Rocky Ridge is both powerful and spiritual and a constant reminder of why we as Tribal Monitors do what we do. Rocky Ridge has had minimal site damage either by cattle or looting and it is the most well preserved site on Standing Rock. Rocky Ridge defines what we do because of the magnitude of the site. Within Rocky Ridge there are burials, sundials, crescent moons representing fasting sites, there is a stone alignment encompassing a hilltop; although it is now partially intact, it remains a powerful symbol of determination. Four of the five snake effigies are found on Rocky Ridge. The snakes encompass the base of two hills and are facing each other. The snakes represent the animal nations. Rocky Ridge contains a wealth of history and spiritual information. All of our dinosaurs are located within Hell Creek Formation. Because of the isolation and the distance of these sites, it can take a day to go out and check and monitor them. Because of the badland type terrain, it is usually impossible to go out and check with a vehicle. It's more feasible to use ATV. Of the 2.3 million acres, less than two percent has been surveyed, so in regards to inventory we have taken and documented 1,155 sites."

Tim Mentz:

"The Tribal Monitors Program continues to be a growing tribal regulatory function for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Other tribes with a certified Tribal Historic Preservation Office are using their cultural knowledge to assist in the betterment of stewardship of their lands and sites and preserving and managing cultural and spiritual areas similar to how our ancestors once did. In our cultural resource code, the Tribal Monitors are the legal conduit representing the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer with federal agencies on federal undertakings. Within the Great Plains, the consistency of applying common law by these tribes with regulatory authority on these areas and the continued use of the natural laws of our grandmother by tribes have made federal agencies recognize the expertise of a tribal monitoring program and staff. Today, monitoring of significant cultural and spiritual areas is the only defense against looting and destruction of our cultural sites. With the identification of these sites, monitoring is the only practical way to manage these vulnerable areas. The tribal monitoring impact involving sacred and burial sites have been so great that the national policy has recently changed to adjust for more tribal involvement in management of areas significant to its people. We take pride in the fact that our program has shaped the way federal agencies are changing their management responsibilities with these areas. Because of this, we are sharing our procedural process with the other six tribes along the Missouri River to start a monitoring program this year. The regulatory authority and the jurisdiction of this office promotes good stewardship of ancient sites and allows for planned economic development in a structured process. The monitors locate and document areas significant to our tribes. Allowing our people to use spiritual areas long since standing idle has revitalized our youth and people to visit these areas. Numerous spiritual rides have taken our youth to visit these sites and to learn and understand how our ancestors once used these sites. Our spiritual riders are now making the annual Chief's Ride to include these particular areas that are very significant to our tribe. Tribes are taking control of lands within the reservations as old societies once did. These areas where our ancestors are buried and where they had their vision quests were protected by our warrior societies and were an important reason why the Indian wars occurred in the 1860s within the Great Plains and in other areas. Results of these violent wars against western expansion led to the treaty process for most tribes and the loss of using our spiritual areas' ancestral lands. With the Tribal Monitors Program expanding the responsibilities, the program has developed a plan and will create a stewardship program to put the elders, the youth, the spiritual practitioners back into the sacred areas of our reservation. [Lakota language]. 'One heart, one mind, one people.' That's our mission statement for our tribe and our office. [Lakota language]."

JoAnn Chase:

"Thank you so much. I have a great appreciation for the program. Certainly it has personal resonance for me as well as a member of the Mandan, Arikara, Hidatsa Nation. I have a two-part question for you. The first part of the question has to do with what I think has been a really impressive building of relationships with a number of different entities including but not limited to some of those very federal entities and agencies which in large part have created some of the problems that you are addressing, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the U.S. Forest Service and so on. I wonder if you might speak just a little bit more to how...what measures you have taken and what measures you will continue to take to really ensure the promotion and protection of and continuation of tribal sovereignty and of self determination, particularly with respect to building relationships with those agencies. That's the first part of the question. The second part of my question has to do with sustainability of the program, and I'm really pleased and honored to see your tribal chairman here, which I think is an important statement of support for the extraordinary work that you're doing. But I also know that sustaining this kind of work can be very challenging and that in large part you depend on a number of volunteers. And I'm wondering also if you would please just talk a little bit more about how...what challenges you might see and how if you...how you may address those challenges in sustainability and if in fact there are plans underway to increase even the tribal support for the program that's in place now."

Tim Mentz:

"Thank you for that question. It's one that's very rooted real deep into Indian Country. First of all, we're dealing with the common law system or the federal legislation and those enactments of laws that created if you will a shroud of uncertainty related to how a federal process or a legislative process could enhance or at least identify and address those types of areas that are most particularly sensitive to the tribes, and that's the spiritual aspect or the natural law system with that aspect of a site given within these areas. Historically, we've looked back at how we have managed to progress all the way up to 1978, where the American Indian Religious Freedom Act had shaped a different understanding from a federal perspective, particularly with federal agencies. Since that time, from 1978 until today, we still continue to struggle to educate the federal system and the federal process, particularly when they start asking questions like, 'Would you be able to give us more information? Would you give us and allow us to hear what your understanding and knowledge is in relation to this site that we're looking at?' And usually we have to separate the archaeological context of that question versus the natural law system or the system that we grew up with. Obviously we have people at our home reservations that have a different knowledge that's not paper-based or what we call a degree. So we have to separate those and have to educate the process in itself. The hurdles that we have taken, from 1978 until today, has led us to understand that we cannot quantify our spirituality. We can't quantify these certain areas that we say that are very significant to us. So it's been a long road in relation to all the federal agencies, particularly the federal land-managing agencies that can very well say that, 'You do not have a piece of paper to go along with what you're saying in relation to this site.' But we say from the other side that, 'Grandmother has taken us this far.' We understand the natural laws that come along with it bridging the culture and the language to these sites is what we promote. That does not mean that the federal process has a space for that, but now with an enactment of the NAGPRA, the Native American Grave Protection Repatriation Act, and the '92 amendments to the National Historic Preservation Act has allowed us to progress to the point now where tribes are dealing with the federal agencies and we're stepping back also and looking at our people and saying, 'You know, how far do we go? How much knowledge, the sacred knowledge as we call it, do we divulge? Where's the fine line at? What can we document and what can't we document?' So those parts of that process has been included to get into what we call the consultation process of the federal system. The second part to your question is we have a number of elders, particularly our spiritual people that are now, we are setting them down and we're saying, 'Forgive us for asking these questions, but now the federal system has forced us to take a step forward and to address certain things that most generally we never talk about in public.' We don't divulge these types of sacred knowledge in public, but the question gets back to what I reiterated earlier, where's the fine line? So now we have our spiritual people actually stepping forward now and saying, 'Yes, maybe we're at the point now where we do have to document some of this knowledge that we have in order to protect these areas.' Until we can achieve that and that understanding from that perspective, it's growing now to the point that we want to have our children coming along with that process, with that discussion and now they're taking a step forward now with these youth rides, putting the horse back into these areas, putting that horse with the responsibility that leads with the horse and putting them back on the horse and getting back to the understanding of our warrior societies protected and fought these and they protected it very jealously, these types of areas. But now we're to the point, now it's the power of the pen and now bringing our spiritual people and our youth and elders together and now they're taking the point now where it's okay now to sit down and talk openly on our reservations now and talk about these things. So now we're pooling a lot of volunteers, particularly our elders that are stepping forward and saying, 'Yes, let's sit down and talk about these things,' and now creating a huge following that now is borne not only on leadership but the spiritual aspect."

David Gipp:

"One other question that I had. With what you're doing with the Tribal Monitors Program at Standing Rock, what other...how does this serve as a model for other tribes and I guess is there an effort, growing effort relative to other communities that you've had contact with on this kind of an effort?"

Tim Mentz:

"Yes, it has. Originally when we started talking about the 92 amendments we pushed for those types of procedures knowing that a procedural process has to be defined by tribes. Hence, we took those steps to know in the '92 amendments that it's okay to identify these people within the tribal structure to take steps similar to the National Historic Preservation Act that identifies Tribal Historic Preservation Officers that have [been] willing and have included in taking steps to do these types of areas and basically sit down with our people and say, 'Where are we going with this issue in relation to our cultural knowledge and our culture?' Hence that has broadened since the '92 amendments to include now that every reservation, particularly reservations, have a certain knowledge, a certain expertise and now we're bridging those gaps together and to form these types of collations and we're moving on a coalition right now in the Great Plains to gather all our cultural people and our cultural knowledge and now we have now affected and enhanced the process by bringing federal agencies and working collaboratively to educate them first off, but secondly to make them understand that we do have the expertise out there. Hence, programs are growing through the federal process, through the federal agencies that are recognizing our importance to the process, our cultural knowledge to the process, but more importantly the sustainability, that part of her question was, 'How do we sustain this process?' It's through our youth. We've got to put our youth back on the land. We have to put them back to the sites. We've got to let them take...walk off that black snake they call the pavement and they've got to walk over the hill. Hence, all these creations of these new programs that are happening on the reservations is a component that's going to not only enhance and enrich the process, but it's going to help us live on and bring those types of peoples together before that cultural knowledge is lost. Before our elders take it to the grave, we want to recapture it." 

Honoring Nations: Pat Cornelius: Oneida Nation Farms

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

Manager of the Oneida Nation Farms Pat Cornelius presents an overview of the organization's work to the Honoring Nations Board of Governors in conjunction with the 2005 Honoring Nations Awards.

People
Resource Type
Citation

Cornelius, Pat. "Oneida Nation Farms." Honoring Nations Awards event. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Tulsa, Oklahoma. November 1, 2005. Presentation.

Pat Cornelius:

"Well, good afternoon everyone and to the Board of Governors. Thank you for inviting us. What I heard this morning with the presenters are really impressive.

Just to let the people know here that the Oneida Farm is one of the biggest farms in northeast Wisconsin. Total acres approximately 9,000 acres. We're tilling approximately 4,700 and some acres. Fifteen years ago we started with 300 acres and 30 head of cattle. It was our general tribal council that said to our council that we should go ahead and purchase our land back, so that's what we're doing. They gave the land commission nine million [dollars] every year to repurchase our land base back.

The Oneida Nation Farms: the Native American Agriculture in America Midwest Heartland

Difficulties and obstacles: the many difficulties and obstacles the Native Americans have seen during the past three centuries must be addressed. We were America's first farmers and we were good stewards of the land and many Native Americans lost their homelands and were displaced to unfamiliar areas with little or no resources to make their living at all. While most farmers and ranchers in America flourished, Indians lacked the modern agricultural know-how and until recently could not get capital, technical support in making agriculture work on the reservations. But we have begun to grow through learning and practical application and this is done through the Kellogg Foundation, First Nations [Development] Institute, Intertribal Bison Cooperative, IAC, USDA Technical Assistance, progressive leadership by our Oneida tribal chairman Gerald Danforth.

Two hundred years ago: history is replete with the early agricultural success of the Oneida Tribe. In the 1500s, the Oneida community in New York were visited by traders [who] reported millions of bushels of corn in storage, 500 acres of land in production. In the early 1900s with a diminished land base, the Haudenosaunee Oneida agriculturalists continued to operate self-sufficient homesteads throughout the territory. We raised white corn, beans, squash, fruits, orchards, domesticated animals. Our cellars were lined with home grown and home canned foods and their corn cribs were full of white corn and they sold food and economics and crafts for a living, although some had already joined the labor force. The cultural, agriculture and social diminished of the Haudenosaunee society were intricately interconnected and intertwined. Well, times have changed.

The Oneida Tribe began settling in what would become Wisconsin in the 1820s. The Oneida Tribe had a treaty agreement with the Menominee Nation for eight million acres. The treaty was for the use and occupancy of the land and the land agreement was then reduced to 500,000 acres. The Oneida Treaty of 1838 gave the Oneida Tribe 65,000 acres and under the Dawes Allotment Act the land base dwindled down to 200. In a hundred years we went from that to approximately 100 acres or 200 acres of land. Traditional tribal culture makes no distinction or separation between spiritual worldviews, values and cultural practices. As Euro-American contact progresses, tribal cultures were devastated.

The allotment and assimilation eras promoted by the Dawes Allotment Act of 1887 and the boarding school era. The boarding school era took infants and children who were ripped from their mothers' arms and placed them in a school far away from their families and literally beat the Indian out of these youths to assimilate them to take the savage out of them. However, they did not understand the deep-seated nature of our cultures, our values, and many of our Native people at that time literally took their culture and tradition and values to the underground to preserve them and preserve their cultural identity. They would not be broken people.

Land and reacquiring our land base back

For the Oneida Tribe everything today is about land and reacquiring our land base. Today, Mother Earth remains the basis of our life for the Oneida people, giving our people subsistence, healing and identity. It connects the past and the present and drives decisions about the future. The Tribe is trying to buy back its full original reservation in northeast Wisconsin. It has laid legal claim to Native land in New York, in upstate New York, and it continues to invest in agriculture and environmental protection programs. Land also goes back to our ceremonies. Land is important in terms of where our ancestors are buried, where the medicines grow, where the trees grow on our Nation. The Oneida Tribe is in the process of reacquiring the original boundaries and has reacquired 17,800 acres, plans to purchase 1,000 acres a year and will have reacquired 51 percent of the 65,000 acres by the year 2020.

The Oneida Nation Farm was started in 1978 and was known as the Iroquois Farm. It had 150 acres and primarily grew vegetables and had a herd of about 25 head of cattle. The Oneida Tribe in their 1979 comprehensive plan proposed using acquired agricultural land to diversify the economy, provide food for the people and to provide employment for our people. We had a meager beginning. In 1989 the farm operation where I began was 350 acres of land and 35 head of cattle. In 1990, the business committee issued a list of objectives. One of these was for the tribe to produce its own vegetables and meat by the year 2000. [In] 1992, the farm land base tripled in size. In 1993, investments in equipment and upgrades to the livestock feed lots were accomplished. These improvements resulted in a workable and efficient farm operation today. At this time, a vertically integrated Oneida agricultural operation became the focus and study to determine the potential for developing a new cannery facility and would process our own meat and our own crops grown on the Oneida fields and could market, distribute, sell the products to our own citizens and other consumers. In 1994, the farm's land base consisted of 1,981 acres of which 1,429 were suitable for crops. So we fast-forward to the year 2004 and we find that the Oneida Farm and the Oneida Agricultural Center grew significantly and responsibly while managing the current...it says 9,000 acres, and diversifying a sustainable farming operation with nine employees.

Consider the following: the farm currently produces 4,750 acres of cash crops, fields of corn, soy beans, wheat, oats and alfalfa. They are either consumed by the farm livestock or we sell it to our neighbors or to outside buyers. We generated nearly two million in revenues in 1995 by placing 2,000 acres sub-marginally acres into federal conservation programs and then we manage 450-550 a year nearly natural Black Angus beef in our feeding operation. We established a hundred head cow/calf rotational grazing project through the federal and with the assistance of the EQUIP program. So we do rotational grazing and now we have a hundred head of calves as well by their side. We established 115 head of bison with the help of ITBC [Intertribal Bison Cooperative] including fencing, water wells and corrals.

We produce traditional white corn, sweet corn for our tribal members and we have a 30-acre apple orchard and we provide healthy harvest in 2004 with sales to our regional orchards that had a poor production year. The orchard store sells squash, pumpkin, pick your own apples, fresh apples, apple pie filling, apple cider, apple butter, applesauce and we sell beef and buffalo and other Native American products. We began studying the creation expansion of a unique Oneida orchard agricultural market with greater country appeal than the large box stores, established new marketing with billboards -- State of Wisconsin, Something from Wisconsin -- and working with the radio stations and newspaper.

It is important that I work with the Oneida Nation school system to begin teaching agricultural business and agricultural bison programs within the schools. We entered the world of high tech. We do our farming with global positioning, high-tech equipment for our plants, our crops, our fertilizer base, and our production. The Oneida Farm works closely with outside funding sources. We worked with again the Intertribal Bison Cooperative, Kellogg Foundation, First Nations [Development Institute], Native American Social Economic Development Strategies, and all USDA programs. Thank you."

Amy Besaw:

"Questions from the board?"

David Gipp:

"You've got a remarkable amount of diversity just within all of your programs that you operate here and I think you're to be commended for it, really some very historical and cultural work that you're doing within your nation. Agriculture and nutrition are I think two critical issues to many of our tribal nations across the land and I guess one of the key questions I always ask is, how do you look at transferability and how does this kind of model that you use work, how could it work for other tribal nations? And what are some of your key ingredients -- if you were to give that advice to another tribal nation -- about how to apply both agricultural and nutritional issues, because as you know diabetes and all of those kinds of issues are real, real problems for most of our population out there throughout Indian Country?

Pat Cornelius:

"Well, working a farm or agriculture or any business with an intertribal government can be...test your strength and your job. What it needs is you need the backing of your tribal...the business committee that we have back home. We need all the players to be involved to support the project to say that health is important, food is important, food security is important and it has to come from the top down. If they support you, that makes my job easier. And then to address the health issues, I am now contacting our diabetes program and working in the schools. We just got our foot in the door so to speak and I think it's critical that we work with our youth and get them to understand -- not only youth as far as health -- but youth to get them involved in coming out and working in the area of agriculture. I worked with youth for 12 years prior to taking this job. I was a home school coordinator at one time and our youth and elders are just...they're our future. They're the future. And who said that we couldn't do farming? Tribal people can do farming and go back and take it back and do it."

Elsie Meeks:

"I just want to make a really quick comment. I would like to commend the Oneida Tribe for hiring a woman as their farm manager."

Pat Cornelius:

"Well, here's my Chair, here's the tribal chairman Gerry Danforth."

Gerry [Gerald] Danforth:

"If I can just comment briefly. I'm the Chairman for Oneida, just recently elected, but I would remiss extremely in my responsibilities as the tribal leader and from the previous tribal leaders who have saw in their past has the wisdom to see this come to a reality but none of this vision would have ever occurred or come to place today with the form of recognition that this Harvard Project has introduced and it certainly would not have become a reality without the steadfast dedication of this woman standing here today, Pat Cornelius."

Pat Cornelius:

"Thank you. Thank you, Gerry."

Oren Lyons:

"I'd like to ask you, what's been the reaction of your non-Indian neighbors to the development of your farm and also to the buffalo herd?"

Pat Cornelius:

"Well, it started like this, is that when we slowly started...I started with the 300 acres, that's how I started my management position to where it is today and I'd go to these feed programs and these programs. My mother's full-blooded Oneida, my father is full-blooded Polish so I kind of look like the Polish side. So I'd go into these meetings and I'd listen to them because like this around, the Oneidas are farming now and they'd say, 'Now what are those Indians doing?' And they'd want to know what the Indians were doing. And they said, 'Oh, the federal government must have bought them a tractor and a combine.' Well, I let them talk and talk and then I'd go over and I'd say, introduce myself, and I'd say, 'I'm Pat, manager of the Oneida Nation Farms.' Well, either they'd turn so red and walk away or they would sit down and talk to me. It has made a big turnaround in our community that we're now very well-respected as far as doing agriculture and they watch us and even some of the new modern machinery that we get to put soil and residue first in how we operate and manage the soils that one day I bought a piece of machinery and within a month there was three farmers that bought the same piece of machinery once they seen us use it. So they do watch us and it's really turned around to being respectful now."

Oren Lyons:

"Are they buying your produce?"

Pat Cornelius:

"Yes, they did. I just sold, right there the corn off that field and we were 230 bushel to the acre on that field and we were...we sold it to one of the big dairies nearby. The first check came in was $78,000 and the next check was $197,000."

David Gipp:

"So it won't be long before you'll be replacing this Land O'Lakes stuff then, huh?"

Pat Cornelius:

"Yes. Oneida Tribal stuff."

David Gipp:

"Very good. One of the other questions I had is that we understand that the effort that you lead really has led to reacquiring about 27 and a half percent of the former reservation or reservation lands or territory I guess. Is that also a part of your long term idea or plan to reacquire even more acreage that benefits agricultural and the citizens of your nation?"

Pat Cornelius:

"I would say yes because most of the acres, the large acres tracts that we have within our area is coming from dairy farmers that are either elder and they don't want to farm anymore. We don't even have to go out and ask to buy land, they come to us. But the land runs anywhere from $5,000 to $9,000 an acre right now and that's what they're charging and if you want it back, that's what we have to pay. I've been on the land commission for 20 years also. I wear about 10 different hats but I just do my job. I just do my job. I work with youth, work with the elder. Sovereignty, the land is important. When I started with the land commission, we had less than 2,000 acres."

Honoring Nations: Pat Sweetsir: Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

Middle Yukon Representative Pat Sweetsir of the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council (YRITWC) discusses how and why the Indigenous nations living in the Yukon River Watershed decided to establish the YRITWC, and the positive impacts it is having on the health of the watershed and those who live there.

People
Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Sweetsir, Pat. "Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council." Honoring Nations symposium. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. September 18, 2009. Presentation.

"A lot of people say, 'Oh, I live in God's country,' but we know that we live in god's cathedral. It's our job to take care of his cathedral.

The military -- we didn't have no position of strength. And so in the strategic plan, I drew up a tribal hearing, so we had a tribal hearing. And we brought the military there and we had the people go before them and tell them, 'There's 55-gallon drums all over the Yukon. Some of them have got stuff in it. There's little holes. It's leaking out on the ground. Our rabbits are eating those willows and we're eating the rabbits...' It's in our food chain, all this pollution. The sad part too, another one of the sad parts is on top of the water table -- and this is along the Yukon, most polluted spot along the Yukon River -- on top of our water table is three feet of fuels. Every spring when the water comes up these things come up through the grounds and then go back down when the water goes down -- a million gallons or more. They don't know how much it is. It covers a huge area, from here across the street, that's how far it is from the Yukon River. Yeah, it concerns us. We get it down there in our fish and our food? Oh, we didn't like that.

Well, after the hearing, we got the military's attention, but at the hearing I invited [the U.S. Department of] Labor, the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA], the State of Alaska, EPA people, the military, to witness what the people were saying, because I wanted them to help us to clean it up. 'Who better to know when our kitchen is clean than us ourselves?' is what Sidney Huntington told the people. He's one of our respected elders.

Out of that was born [the] Yukaana Development Corporation which is a previous winner of an Honoring Nations award, High Honors award. They went about and they picked up 80,000 barrels from along the Yukon River system. There was a big flood in '94 and they didn't have bulk fuel storages, they used those 55 gallon drums. When the waters came up, all of these barrels were floating and people were living on the dike -- there's a dike that surrounds the military base at Galena -- and the Native population is squeezed into this three-quarter-mile-long strip of land by a quarter of a mile land with the base on one side and the Yukon on the other. These waters came up and people were camped out on the base and the military became afraid for their safety. So they brought by these huge helicopters and they just blew those barrels out into the river, out into the ice pack, out into the flow, and they scattered all the way down to the end of the river.

When I brought these people to the hearing, I brought them there to help me plan. How do we plan our way out of this? 'You guys are all responsible just like us, we're going to clean it up for you.' And they helped us develop a strategy to clean it up. We eventually went on and did that, but this story isn't about Yukaana or the military clean up, it's about the Yukon River Watershed. And on that plan, that strategic plan, the trail to the tribal environmental sovereignty, I had the concerns that other villages had -- Thompson Wetlands areas, old machinery all about the village, oils in them, leaking oils, just all those type of contaminants. And in 1997 the tribes came together in the dead of winter, 67 below or something like that. It was cold and stayed cold the whole time they were there. That kept us all together by the way. The military was helpful. They helped us out by giving us a meeting place. Chief Si John from the Coeur d'Alene Tribe facilitated for us -- what a great leader he was -- he told us, 'If you can only just agree on one thing, that this will be a moving thing for the world,' he told us. And of course we didn't understand that, but we understood that agreeing on one thing to clean up our communities and stuff, we could do that.

We started the process of organizing the watershed. These were people that came and they told about this. 'There's fist-sized growths on our moose. Our fish, they have little things in them. They're white, they're like, they come uncurled and they're little worms.' They told their ecological knowledge, what they deal with every day on their food table, and it was very powerful. And we recorded it all too, by the way.

The organization, after that Galena meeting, we had another meeting of the leadership. They decided at that meeting to break the Yukon into different areas. There's the headwaters, that's over in Canada, British Columbia, and Yukon, where the Yukon River begins. There's huge granite mountains and in between them sit these beautiful lakes, hundreds of miles long. If you look down at the bottom, you could drink the water. It's a good place. As that river travels down it hits, it travels north and then it travels west to Fort Yukon area, and out in the Fort Yukon area is a place that's known as Yukon Flats, and there's a whole bunch of, it's where the water just sort of thins out everywhere and there's a whole bunch of islands. And in this special place is where we get our moisture for the interior. It acts like a little incubator putting moisture up in the air, all these bristling waters. And then as you get further down the river down near my place there's a special place called Bishop Mountain. Amy's [Besaw Medford] been there. She visited the smoke house there. At this point, the Yukon River narrows about from here to across the street, very narrow, this whole big huge river. And at this place is a big rock and in the springtime when the drift flows, it tends to bind together but when it hits this rock it busts and smashes it all up and splits it all out and this river continues to go on down river to our neighbors that are on the coast, because along the coast they pick up every little stick of wood that they need, the roots and everything. And so when you get down to the mouth of the river, there's three different channels that come in, but it's a huge wetland there. You can stand at Pilot Mountain and look over there for 60 miles, you see these lakes and the wetland system, all kinds of birds flying over all the time in a steady line. You know you're in a special place. All the leaders have been to these places. I visited nearly all the communities along the watershed, including Canada. I just made it a special trip to go over there, meet people who are in the village. I cannot help defend unless I know who I'm defending and why I'm defending. That's the way I do my work and that's why the chiefs have me do it.

Out of the meeting came a tribal accord. After a couple of years and some meetings and stuff, we developed a tribal accord, a national Native American resource center, or one of those lawyer groups anyway, they helped us out. This tribal accord is an agreement between these tribal governments to clean up their own communities and let's teach our children about the environment. We have people with old habits that put oil in there in their boat and then throw the container overboard. The only one that can stop the adults from doing that is the children. So we teach the children and the children say, 'Grandpa, you're not supposed to do that.' It's the only way to get into the home with this new thinking about the environment for our own people. That's how we do it.

I don't know what to say too much about the Watershed [Council], except that they're doing remarkable things. They're discovering the science of the river. We have 80 technicians along the river that are in the village taking water samples, gathering a huge database. This past summit that we had at Helen's Landing over in Yukon, one of the federal departments signed a ten-year agreement with us to take water samples. So we're going to get some long-term stuff. We've been doing it incrementally as we get money, but now we can do a better job. At Ruby, where I live, this summer they took a cross-section of the river, some pictures. If you were to take a cross-section of river, there's different flow in the river and we had to identify that so that we could put in a renewable energy experiment of generating electricity from a device that just floats on top of the water.

I guess some of the lessons learned is delivering education to our children. People say, 'Indians are caretakers of the earth,' and we say, 'Fine, empower us.' But we have to do that empowering ourselves as our children take the time and we do that in the schools. They color bags for us so we can band plastic shopping bags as a convenience. We don't have that in our village. The children make us little bags to carry around, cute little things. I think the training of people for handling hazardous waste in the village, that's another one of the things that the watershed does. We help with strategic planning when tribes are facing a problem with such things as how do you address, how do you be friends. If one tribe says, 'I want nuclear energy,' and the other tribe says, 'I don't like that.' So we develop a tribal accord, I mean tribal protocol. How do we act as governments to one another and not get mad at each other and start slamming doors, but keep that open? I think another big one is value-based decision making that the watershed group does. It's not so much corporate but value-based. They do it by consensus. Everybody has to agree. If one person or one tribe disagrees, that subject is gone. Consensus-based decision making is a new thing for some people, but not for tribes [because] that's usually what they do.

I want to tell a little story about, back to the Air Force again, because it's a cute story and I don't have much time left. Getting down and talking to a government, any federal government that you're dealing with, it takes to get down to the level of one on one. And I used to get a kick out of watching my chief Peter Captain. We'd be using this eagle feather to pass around, only one person can speak at a time. And my chief, he'd take this eagle feather and he'd be just kind of messing it up and he'd pass this eagle feather to the colonel -- the one that he's doing business with -- and the colonel will be telling his thing. Next thing that eagle feather is straight and perfect again. But it's the chief's way of getting sublime-ness into the conversations or into the atmosphere of those negotiations and stuff. It works really well. I think that's about all I've got to say. It might be enough. Thank you."