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Anchor: Daniel Montaño
The federal government is following through on a promise to increase tribal input in managing federal lands.
The Department of the Interior announced on Tuesday new guidance and policy establishing co-stewardship of federal lands and waters.
The National Park Service, along with the Bureau of Land management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, will work directly with Native tribes, Alaska Natives entities, and Native Hawaiian communities, giving tribes a greater voice in protecting cultural assets and sacred sites.
USA Today reports co-stewardship would give tribes decision making legal authority, collaborative management responsibilities, and, in some cases, complete self-governance.
In addition, the policy calls for the NPS to reach out to tribes directly, rather than waiting for tribes to come to them, on any plans or activities that would impact native interests, practices, or traditional use areas.
NPS director Chuck Sams says he knows some native communities will hold doubts, having heard similar promises before that bore little fruit.
But this time, he says, they have friends in high places. Both Sams and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland are tribal citizens who have been working on getting more native input into federal decisions for decades.
The policy specifically includes “non-federally recognized tribes, relocated Indigenous people with a historic link to the area, and other traditionally associated peoples,” aiming to add influence for people who have been overlooked in the past.
The Cherokee nation passed its largest ever budget this week — $3.5 billion.
Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. says his top priority is expanding and strengthening the criminal justice system following the supreme Court’s McGirt decision, which changed the processes of tribal criminal cases.
Anadisgoi reports the budget increases funds for the Cherokee National Marshall Service by $6 million and adds money for more attorney general and judicial staff.
All told the budget forecasts 5,600 new tribal government employees.
The plans also include more drug and mental health treatment facilities, and expanding transportation services and infrastructure, including public housing.
One of those investments is $400 million dollars to replace a nearly four decade old hospital that was originally designed to serve 60,000 patients a year, but has been seeing more than half a million patients in recent years.
Hoskin said the new hospital will be six stories tall and more than twice the size of the current one, and that construction will begin within a year.
The budget also sets aside more than $5 million for the government to transfer inmates who have sentences longer than six months to a facility in central Texas.
KOKH news reports with the McGirt decision expanding the prison population, even inmates found guilty of a crime could be released unless the transfer takes place. Hoskin says it’s simply a matter of safety and capacity.
The entirety of the Yakama Nation Council faces possible recall following allegations of misusing funds and efforts to protect six of its members from suspension.
The Yakima Herald-Republic reports an audit of Land Enterprise, a Yakama initiative that oversees and administers tribal land, revealed the alleged misuse of funds.
The tribe’s Code of Ethics Board performed the audit and investigation.
The recall was sparked by audit’s findings that allegedly the Land Enterprise managers received incentives, payouts, and wage raises while workers in other divisions were put on furlough or dismissed.
The committee members that oversee Land Enterprise were accused of failing to impartially investigate those financial benefits and have been suspended without pay for 60 days.
Four of them refused to cooperate with the investigation and were placed on probation until they comply.
A recall meeting has been scheduled for October 12, when voting tribal members will decide if the council will be removed.
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