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Recovery efforts are continuing after the devastating Maui wildfires in August.

Although many communities are coming together to offer support, the Native Hawaiian community is having to deal with threats of a new wave of colonialism on their ancestral homelands, according to a grassroots Native Hawaiian advocate.

Community members have been displaced after their land, homes, and businesses have all been destroyed.

Many are still searching for their loved ones.

At a time when many people are afraid, injured, or displaced, Camille Kalama (Native Hawaiian) says they’re now having to fear that corporations and wealthy outsiders will try to take their land.

“And, so some of the residents who were affected by the fires were getting calls as early as the week of the fire offered to buy their land from real estate companies and it’s created and generated a lot of fear that there will be an exploitation of the disaster that happened, and a new wave of development and outsiders coming in and utilizing basically what’s in terms to us is capitalism. Trying to use and exploit the devastation for profit.”

Kalama is the executive director for Ko‘ihonua, a local non-profit organization, and a board member of NDN Collective, a Native-led organization advocating for Indigenous issues.

In August, officials released a list of a few hundred people who are still missing.

Kalama says people are still grieving.

“So, the community, while their active in relief efforts, and a lot of support and provides company and community is still grieving and still processing what’s going on here, and what happened.”

As recovery and rebuilding continues, Kalama says Native groups are urging for Indigenous-led rebuilding efforts.

She also says they’re encouraging those who want to help to verify their donations are going to vetted sources.

Northern Arapaho artist Robert Martinez combines historic imagery and modern themes to create work that speaks to contemporary Indigenous issues.

His art is currently on display in Cheyenne.

Wyoming Public Radio’s Hannah Habermann reports.

Robert Martinez is a Northern Arapaho and Chicano artist born on the Wind River Reservation.

Some of his work draws on the Plains Indian ledger art tradition, blending past and present.

“After we were pushed onto reservations, and we couldn’t hunt buffalo as they were exterminating them, we would trade for or were given already filled-out ledger books, and we would paint and draw over the text in those.”

Ledger books were used to record accounting transactions.

Martinez’ art will be at the Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne until September 8.

During a recent ceremony, Navajo Nation lawmakers joined U.S, Navy officials and Navajo veterans to celebrate the historic christening of the USNS Navajo in Houma, La.

The ship is a new class of rescue, towing, and salvage ships, named in honor of the service of Navajo veterans and Navajo Nation Code Talkers.

Five ships have been named after the Navajo Nation including the first ship, the USS Navajo that came into service in 1908 and the USS Navajo III which served from 1917 to 1919.

In 2015, the Navy notified the Navajo Nation Council that they were considering naming a ship after the Navajo Nation.

Former Navajo Nation Council Speaker Lorenzo Bates, who attended the christening ceremony, says his staff worked with the Secretary of the Navy and late U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to support the naming.

The christening ceremony was attended by representatives from the U.S. Navy and Bollinger Shipyard, United Houma Nation representatives, Assistant Secretary of Tribal Affairs of the U.S. Department of Transportation, and other guests.

 

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A first-of-its-kind report on missing persons in Alaska has been released.

The State Department of Public Safety and the Anchorage Police Department collaborated to collect this data.

Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA has more.

Austin McDaniel, a spokesman for the Public Safety Department, says the report maps out hundreds of cases going back to 1960.

“We think this is a good first effort, and we’re definitely interested in adding additional data points.”

McDaniel says the work, which is an outgrowth of Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R-AK)’s People First Initiative, will be updated every quarter and can be found online.

In the last quarter, from April to June, 200 Alaska Native or American Indian people went missing in the state. Most of those have been found, except for 25.

The database has an important new feature.

It categorizes the circumstances surrounding the disappearances, identifying those which are suspicious.

As director of the Data for Indigenous Justice group, Charlene Apok welcomes the new report and says it’s what advocates for missing Indigenous people have been asking for – for years.

She worked on an earlier attempt to track their numbers.

“Sadly, I think what this really illustrates is a systemic issue of violence that’s being perpetrated in our community in the state of Alaska. And that should raise flags and alarms, and really start igniting justice.”

Apok hopes the database will continue to improve and provide more information about those missing, including their hometowns and Native cultural identities, so they become more than just points of data, but reminders of loved ones, lost to their families.

A Native youth group spent one week in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks reconnecting with their roots.

Wyoming Public Radio’s Hannah Habermann reports.

13 Native youth from the Wind River Reservation and the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota explored the area alongside five traditional elders and teachers from the Lakota, Dakota, Northern Arapaho, Eastern Shoshone, and Blackfeet Nations.

Lynnette Grey Bull is the leader of the youth group, called Indigenous Youth Voices.

It’s the first time the group has hosted this kind of event. She says that sharing knowledge between generations is invaluable.

“Not only do we share our language and speak our language, but we also share things that they probably haven’t learned and won’t be able to learn in school. Some of our traditional and oral knowledge and historical knowledge, as many people know, is not told in the right way.”

The group spent the week kayaking, whitewater rafting, and traditional storytelling.

 

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Challenges are faced by schools everywhere – but each district is unique.

As the school year starts, South Dakota’s State-Tribal Relations Board got an update on the state’s reservation schools.

SDPB’s C.J. Keene has more.

The State-Tribal relations committee is tasked with continuously studying the relationship between South Dakota’s government and tribal entities.

Sherry Johnson is the education director of the Sisseton-Wahpheton Oyate.

She says tribal education efforts are forced to contend with deep, complicated history.

“We’ve had several religion-based and government boarding schools in operation over the years to formally educate the children of the Oyate since the relocation of our tribal members to the Lake Traverse Reservation.”

Now pair that with a challenge faced by just about every school district in the state – teacher shortages.

“Our schools all are advertising, they’re doing recruitment, retention, bonuses. Our tribal schools can not compete with salaries on an equal playing level – but they do the best they can. We too are experiencing that teacher shortage.”

A committee was proposed for tribal and state-run schools to help close the ever-widening teacher shortage.

No actions were taken on the proposal.

Along with that are the realities of education in rural settings.

Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Education Director Cherie Farlee says don’t forget about reservation infrastructure needs.

“Even though the pavement here looks like this – at least you have pavement. Where I’m from we have gravel roads, and our school busses have to travel those every day. Sometimes the roads are so bad we have to cancel. Not that our teachers aren’t there, but because we can’t get the kids to school with the conditions of the roads.”

Further, Farlee says additional dollars for operational maintenance is needed to make a difference for school buildings in tribal settings.

It’s known at the Alaska State Fair as “The Gathering Place”, created to showcase the talents of Alaska Native singers, dancers, and artists from across the state.

It’s also where Bessie Meyer demonstrates how to filet salmon.

As KNBA’s Rhonda McBride discovered, this Inupiaq elder has become something of a celebrity in her own right.

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U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia Fudge visited the city of Kenai, Alaska Wednesday to announce a major federal grant for local tribes.

KDLL’s Riley Board has more.

Sec. Fudge appeared at the Kenaitze Indian Tribe’s year-old educational campus to announce $7.5 million for an affordable housing project.

“So today, as a leader in the Biden-Harris administration, it is my responsibility to do all that I can to do all I can to support your right to not just live, but to thrive.”

The money will go to a special group that represents two Kenai-area tribes, Kenaitze and Salamatof. It will fund an 18-unit elder housing project in Kenai.

So far this year, the program says it has served almost 200 households in areas like student housing and homelessness prevention. It also helps with services like snow plowing, fire safety and urgent home repairs.

Kaarlo Wik, chairperson for that Kenaitze-Salamatof housing entity, said the elder housing has been a dream for 20 years, and thanked the Biden-Harris administration and Sec. Fudge for their support of tribal interests.

“I’m so honored to have acknowledgement from the administration, to come to our area and come see us. We don’t get visits up in the great white north too often from Washington, and it’s truly appreciated.”

The money is part of a broader package of $128 million distributed across 22 tribes and intended for affordable housing development.

It comes from the Indian Housing Block Grant, which provides funding for housing infrastructure on reservations and related areas.

The Tlingit Haida Regional Housing Authority in Juneau is also receiving $7.5 million from this award.

Sec. Fudge is the latest of several cabinet secretaries to visit Alaska this summer to promote federal funding.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Attorney General Merrick Garland both visited multiple Alaska communities this August.

A Washington State man was sentenced to two years in federal prison this week for passing off art produced in the Philippines as authentic Alaska Native art – the longest sentence anyone has received for violating the federal Indian Arts and Craft Act.

Court records say 59-year-old Cristobal Magno Rodrigo must also donate $60,000 to the Tlingit and Haida Central Council’s vocational program and write a letter of apology to the Ketchikan Daily News.

As KNBA’s Rhonda McBride reports, the fake art was sold to tourists in Ketchikan.

Rosita Worl, president of Sealaska Heritage Institute, says fake art is a growing problem, because those who produce it don’t consider it a crime.

“I hope this sends a very strong and clear message that selling fake art and portraying that it’s Native-made is illegal.”

The Sealaska Heritage Institute sells Native art from all over Alaska at its store in Juneau.

“A lot of our artists live in Rural communities, where there is no real economy.”

And fake art, Worl says, steals income that might have gone to Alaska Natives – to help them remain in their communities and maintain ties to their land and culture.

In the case of the Rodrigo family, the U.S. Attorney’s office says their scheme netted $1 million in sales during 2019 and part of 2021.

Perry Eaton, a Supiaq Alutiq mask carver, says he doesn’t think Rodrigo’s sentence is harsh enough.

“The fraud is two-faced. It’s an absolute slap in the face to the artist, but it’s also a fraud to the buyer. The buyer comes to Alaska on this cruise for an experience and the Indigenous culture is big in that experience. And you got a fraud. It’s a knock-off.”

The Alaska U.S. Attorney’s office says Rodrigo’s wife and son have been named as co-conspirators.

Their case is still ongoing.

Investigators say the family sold carvings and totem poles that were made in the Philippines and then shipped to two stores in Ketchikan.

Alaska Natives workers were hired to sell the art and present it to customers as their own work, or art by Alaska Natives made from local materials.

A number of federal agencies were involved in building the case against Rodrigo, including special agents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Customs and Border Protections, and the Department of Agriculture with assistance from the Indian Arts and Crafts Board and the U.S. Attorney’s office.

If you were a customer of Alaska Stone Arts, LLC or Rail Creek, LLC and purchased a stone carving or wood totem pole believing that it was an authentic Alaskan Native artwork, please contact U.S. Fish and Wildlife Special Agent Sherrell at 907-586-7545.

 

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A sacred rock on display in Lawrence, Kan. is being returned to the Kaw Nation.

Rhonda LeValdo has the story.

The vice chair of the Kaw nation James Pepper Henry spoke of the first time he learned of the sacred rock from his uncle.

“I first witnessed Iⁿ‘zhúje‘waxóbe about 30 years ago. My great-uncle Luther Pepper was vice chair of the Kaw Nation at the time, and he brought me here to Kansas to see the stone and some other sacred sites that were important to the Kaw people. That really opened my eyes to our history and our culture and what we were losing. He said at that time, some day, Iⁿ‘zhúje‘waxóbe will come back to the Kaw people.”

Iⁿ‘zhúje‘waxóbe was removed from its foundation and the plaque dedicating it to the first founders of Lawrence was also removed.

The Sacred Rock will be moved to Council Grove, Kan.

The Kaw Nation has a centuries’ long relationship with the Iⁿ‘zhúje‘waxóbe and value it as a sacred item of prayer.

In a public event Tuesday, many in attendance heard about the history of the sacred rock including Gov. Laura Kelly (R-KS).

“Well, today’s return is a significant step forward in the relationship between the Kaw Nation and the City of Lawrence, it alone is not enough it must be part of a statewide effort to respect the significance of sacred places and support tribal cultures.”

Iⁿ‘zhúje‘waxóbe is a 28-ton red Siouxan quartzite boulder currently located in Robinson Park in Lawrence, Kan.

It was moved there from the confluence of the Shunga-nunga Creek and Kansas River in 1929 to become a monument to the early founders of the City of Lawrence.

It is set to leave for its permanent home back with the Kaw Nation today.

Tribes in California blasted the state’s university system for withholding nearly 700,000 Native American remains at a state legislative hearing Tuesday.

It comes as an audit finds more than half the California State University campuses have failed to turn over any remains to tribes.

Christina Aanestad reports.

State Rep. James Ramos (Serrano/Cahuilla/D-CA) called on 21 of the state’s 23 universities to repatriate Native remains to their tribes.

“it is very concerning that decades after federal and state laws were enacted to repatriate remains and cultural objects almost nothing has been done to fulfill that obligation.”

Rep. Ramos called a hearing on the issue at the state capitol after an audit report in June found more than half the state universities failed to even begin returning native American remains to their tribes and many still don’t even know what remains they have.

Several tribes responded to the report.

Jack Potter is chair of the Redding Rancheria Tribe, Melissa Tayaba is vice chair of the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, and Leo Sisco is chair of the Tachi Yokut Tribe.

“This report is sad and heartbreaking, it is hard when we know the spirts of our ancestors are locked on shelves. It’s painful to see more than 700,00 are sitting on boxes tagged numbered, not only is the CSU system disrespecting the laws, they’re disrespecting the memory of our people. It is appalling, unacceptable and shameful.”

The audit calls for a systemwide policy for repatriation, an oversight commission, and funding to catalog and inventory remains and artifacts as part of repatriation efforts.

Rep. Ramos says he will put forth legislation to force the state universities to act.

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The Qawalangin Tribe is offering free online college programs to all tribal members through a new educational partnership.

KUCB’s Sofia Stuart-Rasi reports tribal officials are hoping the opportunity will help grow a workforce in Unalaska beyond the fishing industry.

The Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska is partnering with an online college offering free certificates and degrees to all tribal members.

The collaboration is part of the tribe’s Workforce Development Pilot Program and offers a range of courses in healthcare, business administration, and skilled trades at Penn Foster College.

Tanaya Horne is the Chief Operating Officer for the Tribe.

She says they intentionally chose programs that would support Unalaska’s workforce as the city looks to diversify its economy amid declining crab stocks and other uncertainties in the fishing industry.

“[It] comes into flux where we don’t quite know what is going to happen… It’s our responsibility and pride to ensure that the lands are protected. And part of that is making sure that we’ve got capable people on island who can do the work that comes with that economic development that we’re so looking forward to in Unalaska.”

The Qawalangin Tribe is part of a trilateral agreement with the City of Unalaska and the island’s Native village corporation Ounalashka Corporation.

The entities have pledged to jointly address the island’s infrastructure needs. And Horne says they’re also investing in Unalaskans.

“We’re training people … we’re using federal training dollars through workforce development grants … and we’re not having to invest in bringing people on the island. You know, it’s reducing operational expenses.”

There are dozens of free online Penn Foster College courses now available to tribal members to help them get a high school diploma, certificates and degrees.

Horne says several people have already enrolled in the college partnership since launching the program late last month.

The U.S. Census Bureau has a tool called My Tribal Area that organizes information about tribal communities.

Emma VandenEinde of the Mountain West News Bureau explains how it’s been received over the years.

The tool allows users to search for a particular reservation or pueblo, and it will show information in five categories: people, jobs, housing, economy, and education.

The tool aims to make tribal data clear and more readily accessible. Eric Coyle with the Bureau says it’s been useful for grant writers.

“I send them a link to this tool and I just get thank you’s all around.”

But not much has changed to the layout since its inception in 2016, besides the updated data.

Some data points have large margins of error.

And Carolyn Liebler, a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota, says the Census changed their coding for race in 2020, which impacted the numbers.

“It is really hard to make policy decisions when some of the data that you’re working with are different over time for reasons that aren’t related to what’s happening on the ground.”

Still, Liebler believes it’s one of the best tools for accessing American Indian and Alaska Native data.

Tribal leaders and California state lawmakers pressed top California State University officials Tuesday about returning nearly 700,000 Native American human remains and items to tribes.

They held a press conference at the state capitol, followed by a committee hearing on findings from a state auditor’s report released in June.

Tribal leaders and lawmakers say the university is failing to return the remains, which they say is violating federal and state law.

The university’s interim president and four other campus representatives are scheduled to testify.

 

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A first-of-its-kind report on missing persons in Alaska has been released.

The State Department of Public Safety and the Anchorage Police Department collaborated to collect this data.

Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA has more.

Austin McDaniel, a spokesman for the Public Safety Department, says the report maps out hundreds of cases going back to 1960.

“We think this is a good first effort, and we’re definitely interested in adding additional data points.”

McDaniel says the work, which is an outgrowth of Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R-AK)’s People First Initiative, will be updated every quarter and can be found online.

In the last quarter, from April to June, 200 Alaska Native or American Indian people went missing in the state. Most of those have been found, except for 25.

The database has an important new feature.

It categorizes the circumstances surrounding the disappearances, identifying those which are suspicious.

As director of the Data for Indigenous Justice group, Charlene Apok welcomes the new report and says it’s what advocates for missing Indigenous people have been asking for – for years.

She worked on an earlier attempt to track their numbers.

“Sadly, I think what this really illustrates is a systemic issue of violence that’s being perpetrated in our community in the state of Alaska. And that should raise flags and alarms, and really start igniting justice.”

Apok hopes the database will continue to improve and provide more information about those missing, including their hometowns and Native cultural identities, so they become more than just points of data, but reminders of loved ones, lost to their families.

Indigenous groups in Guatemala say they’re preparing for massive protests if necessary to defend the results of last weekend’s election.

That vote saw a landslide by the anti-corruption candidate Bernardo Arévalo, which the Guatemalan government is now trying to overturn.

Maria Martin reports.

About a dozen Maya and other Indigenous groups met recently in the community of Totonicapan.

Later they issued a statement addressed to the people of Guatemala and the international community.

In it, the influential Maya Quiche organization “48 Cantones” – speaking for the collective, expressed “profound concerns” at Guatemala’s constitutional crisis, which they say is a result of quote “constant and flagrant” violations of the constitution by an entrenched corrupt group that seeks to hold on to power.”

It’s the first time for people to defend their vote says the 48 Cantones President Luis Pacheco Gutierrez.

“And to show that Native people…along with all Guatemalans are uniting to oppose wrong decisions that are being taken…enough is enough.”

The Indigenous authorities of Solola meanwhile say if Attorney General Consuelo Porras continues to “destroy democracy,” they’ll be forced to take over highways, airports, and offices of the Public Ministry.

They’re also calling for Porras’ resignation.

The Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe in New York has received an initial distribution of $1.3 million from a group of nationwide opioid settlements.

The tribe was part of the opioid settlements reached in 2022 with pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors.

According to the tribe, additional payments are to be made by some of the settling companies over a number of years.

The tribe filed suit in 2018 contending companies that manufacture, market, and distribute opioids carried out a scheme to make individuals believe that prescription opioids were safe, non-addictive, and could be used without long-term effects.

The complaint alleges that the scheme created an opioid epidemic that has ravaged tribal communities.

According to the tribe, the opioid epidemic created health effects on its members and their families, as well as increased instances of child welfare, foster care cases, and crime.

The tribe has been working to combat the impacts of the opioid epidemic.

The settlement will be used to support programs and services.

 

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There’s a new marker along Anchorage’s Coastal Trail.

It says Nuch’ishtunt, which means “the place protected from the wind” in Dena’ina Athabascan.

The sign is part of the Indigenous Place Names Project and is a reminder that Dena’ina people were and continue to be part of Anchorage.

Jeremy Hsieh reports from Alaska Public Media in Anchorage.

At a ceremony celebrating the new signpost, Aaron Leggett shares an anecdote about meeting other young Alaska Natives when he was 19 working at the Alaska Native Heritage Center.

“And I told them that I was Dena’ina. They said, ‘Well, what’s that?’ Then they said, ‘Well, where’s your village?’ I said, ‘We’re from here.’ They said, ‘No, where’s your Native village?’ I said, ‘We’re from here.’ ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘Well, Eklutna is 26 miles from downtown Anchorage.’ And some of them who had grown up in Anchorage said, ‘Well, I didn’t know Native people lived here.”

He says he realized Dena’ina were largely invisible and he wanted to work on reclaiming who Dena’ina are as a people.

That was more than 20 years ago.

Now, Leggett is the president of the Native Village of Eklutna and a curator with the Anchorage Museum.

He’s been working on the Indigenous Place Names Project since its inception in 2018.

The “Nuch’ishtunt” sign is the effort’s fourth installment.

Dena’ina people used to set up seasonal salmon fishing camps near this point, up until federal officials banned commercial fishing here in the 1950s.

“Indigenous place making deepens the connection we have to place.”

Beth Nordlund is the executive director of the Anchorage Park Foundation, another organization working on the project.

“This is bigger than signs. It’s a movement.”

Project supporters eventually want to put up 32 of these sculpture signs in high visibility areas around Anchorage and Eklutna.

They each feature iron artwork representing a fire bag, a pouch used to carry materials for starting a fire.

It’s also a symbol of living outdoors and sharing.

A new report shows forests managed by tribal communities are extremely underfunded. And that’s affecting lands they rely on for economic, social, and cultural resources.

The Mountain West News Bureau’s Kaleb Roedel has more.

The report was done by the Indian Forest Management Assessment Team.

It calls on the federal government to increase funding to tribes by nearly $100 million each year.

That would match the per-acre funds that agencies like the U.S. Forest Service receive to manage forests.

Cody Desautel is president of the Intertribal Timber Council and member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Washington State.

He says wildfires have burned almost 700,000 acres of their forestlands since 2015.

“And in places that we likely would have had treated ahead of time to reduce that post-fire severity if we had more funding and staffing.”

He says tribes need those now – as climate change fuels more frequent and severe wildfires.

“We’d like to do considerably more prescribed fire to combat some of the post-fire impacts we’ve seen and protect our communities.”

In 2019, tribal forests covered more than 19 million acres in the U.S.

Tribal leaders and state lawmakers in California are pressing California State University officials to return Native American human remains and artifacts to tribes.

Leaders and lawmakers plan to gather at the state capitol next week to discuss an auditor’s report released this summer with CSU representatives.

Tribal leaders and lawmakers citing the report say CSU is failing to return the remains and cultural items, which is failing to comply with federal and state laws.

According to the audit, only around 6% of CSU’s nearly 700,000 remains and items have been repatriated.

 

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In the heavily Indigenous country of Guatemala, Indigenous citizens hold high hopes for the upcoming administration of their newly elected president, as Maria Martin reports.

Anthropologist Irma Alicia Velásquez Nimatuj (Kʼicheʼ Maya), who has taught at Stanford and other U.S. universities, shared in the nationwide euphoria after the upset landslide victory last Sunday of reform candidate Bernardo Arévalo.

”In many ways, this is a dream that come true.”

For Indigenous people, she says, there are now hopes for a different Guatemala, one in which the Maya and other Indigenous groups aren’t marginalized and treated as second-class citizens.

“So this is the opportunity to change the reality, to stop the migration to the United States… this is also a special moment for Indigenous women… Indigenous women in Guatemala have been working very hard for justice.”

Velásquez herself has suffered threats for her work as a columnist in the now closed newspaper El Periodico.

Her hopes for change are tempered by the reality of a Guatemalan system still trying to block Arévalo from taking office.

“We know that Arévalo has many challenges, but we also recognize that it’s possible to start to change and to build another Guatemala.”

There’s plenty of conservation work to do on tribal lands, but it’s not always easy to get Indigenous people into these positions.

Groups such as the Forest Stewards Youth Corps see the value of working with them and it’s made an impact on the community, as Emma VandenEinde of the Mountain West News Bureau reports in part two of her series.

Conservation is interwoven into Indigenous teachings and they know how to care for the land.

A 2021 study showed that Indigenous-managed lands accounted for protecting about 85% of the world’s biodiversity.

Chas Robles is the director of Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps, another conservation group focused on recruiting Indigenous Youth in the Mountain West, like the Forest Stewards Youth Corps.

He says investment in youth training programs is critical.

“So reconnecting those young folks to those places and spaces… is a really powerful opportunity for those young folks to really find a passion for the outdoors and the lands in the waters that their ancestors inhabited.”

And that passion is being pursued. 30 people from Jemez Pueblo have gone through the Youth Corps programs.

Of the 23 people who served on all of the crews this summer, 12 said they are pursuing, or plan to pursue, a career in Natural Resource Management.

Kyla Magdalena had a similar experience.

She expected to go to work straight out of high school… until she fell in love with tree plot planning.

“It was kind of like a scavenger hunt because they would just give you the map in the coordinates.”

Now, she wants to study Geographic Information Systems.

“That really inspired me, so I plan to get my degree and come back to the community and help out with land.”

That’s critical for people like John Galvan, the tribal forest manager for Jemez Pueblo.

He says the work doesn’t get done without the trainees’ help.

He gives them all the same advice: “Go out and explore the world and see what’s out there and get your education, but do come back again to help our people, our community, our landscape.”

Galvan hopes that more Indigenous people will use their knowledge of the land to help preserve it for years to come.

“That’s what it comes down. What are we leaving for our future generations? So it’s great to have these kids that are interested right now. Hopefully we can direct them to become foresters again.”

Listen to part one of her series:

This two-part series was supported by The Water Desk, an initiative from the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Environmental Journalism.

 

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U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland experienced what Alaska Natives in remote villages experience all the time Tuesday.

Rhonda McBride from our flagship station reports.

Merrick Garland got weathered out of a flight to Huslia, a tiny community on the Koyukuk River in Interior Alaska.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who traveled with Garland, says she’s not in the habit of wishing visitors to Alaska bad weather.

“But it was a reminder that when something happens when there is a tragedy, or a threat or something that requires public safety intervention in a community that is not accessible, and weather shuts in, there is no plan B.”

Rain and strong winds cancelled Garland’s flight to Huslia, which is only accessible by air and water.

Garland says the challenges of Alaska weather was not something he could have fully understood without experiencing it.

“We had a United States Marshals plane, we had a United States Air Force plane and still with the weather, we weren’t able to get there. I can’t imagine what would happen in the circumstance, if there was an emergency.”

Garland was able to meet with tribal leaders in Galena, another Interior Alaska community.

He also attended a roundtable hosted by the Alaska Federation of Natives in Anchorage, where he announced $22 million in funding for the Alaska Native Justice Center to help tribes improve their public safety and justice systems.

The meeting was closed to the media, but Michelle Demmert (Lingít), a longtime tribal court judge, says there was a lot at stake for Alaska Natives who experience some of the highest rates of violence in the country

“Alaska tribes have not gotten the same resources across the board when it comes to essential governmental services and it’s time for them to pony up.”

Demmert is the Not Invisible Commissioner of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Tribal Governance Program.

She called the meeting groundbreaking, because Garland acknowledged Alaska tribes as democratic institutions and their importance to the nation.

Read Garland’s remarks at a roundtable with representatives of Alaska Native organizations in Anchorage

*This story was updated to correct the federal funding amount awarded to Alaska. It was reported $70 million, when in fact it was $22 million.

The land and its waterways have long been sacred to Indigenous people. And they know how to care for it well.

Now, some groups are recruiting Indigenous youth to restore and protect these areas.

Emma VandenEinde of the Mountain West News Bureau visits a pueblo in New Mexico to see how one crew is doing that.

“So, yeah, just cut loose branches, any low-hanging branches.”

It’s a hot, sunny morning in Jemez Pueblo.

Allen Baca, a crew member from the Forest Stewards Youth Corps, is giving instructions for their project at a trailhead near a red rock formation.

“The site is going to be anywhere within the grounds, don’t worry about those outside the boundaries.”

They start cutting and sawing.

Branches overflow in the pickup truck bed, but Baca makes sure they take care of every tree.

“Sam, if you want to head down to that tree right there and just prune that one, and me and Mell are going to go around collecting.”

Behind each branch is a lesson to these Indigenous youth about giving back.

“It’s not just for the benefit of me. It’s for the benefit of the community and then our future as well, our future kids and our future governors.”

The Youth Corps summer program is for 15-to-25 year olds like Baca.

Five crews across New Mexico are trained on natural resource careers, all while restoring the land.

The Jemez Pueblo crew, which joined in 2020, is the only one on Indigenous land.

For a little over two months, they work on a variety of projects, like thinning forests to slow wildfires or removing invasive trees by streams.

One of their projects is by Jemez Springs.

On the side of a cliff is an image of a woman wearing a shawl, which is spiritually important to the Jemez people.

Baca says work like this is much more than cutting down trees.

“We just have deep connections with our own lands as well. And just, you know, taking care of your land just feels like you’re just taking care of, you know, yourself as well.”

There are other Indigenous conservation groups in the Mountain West, like Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps. Their crews work on habitat restoration projects on tribal lands in New Mexico, Arizona, and Wyoming.

But Chas Robles, the director of Ancestral Lands, says recruitment has been challenging.

Along with factors like low pay, there’s another barrier: trauma.

Indigenous people used to inhabit and manage these lands, but the federal government forced them onto reservations. And that history hasn’t always been acknowledged in natural resource jobs.

“To totally ignore the Indigenous people who inhabited those lands…it’s a huge injustice.”

Tune in tomorrow to hear how successful the program has been in tribal communities despite these barriers to recruitment.

This story was supported by The Water Desk, an initiative from the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Environmental Journalism.

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