Conservation on Indigenous Land

Over the course of my life, I have been to 49 states (Louisiana, I’m coming). And no matter where I go in America – Alaska, Hawaii, Florida, Maine, and everywhere I have set foot in between – I am on Indigenous land.

It is important to recognize that every place in America is an ancestral home for Native people, but that’s not enough. We must also connect with today's descendants in a substantial way. 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is well-positioned to do so,  and in this issue of Fish & Wildlife News, you’ll get a look at our work on that connection.

Members ofthe Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian communities were the first conservation stewards of the country’s lands and still keep watch over more than 100 million acres of Tribal lands, holding some of the most important conservation lands in the country. I know their participation is key to the future of fish and wildlife conservation.

In this issue, you’ll learn how the Winnemem Wintu Tribe of Northern California used their traditional ecological knowledge to help partners move salmon above a dam in the face of drought.

“When talking about returning salmon to historical habitats above high-head dams, it's not uncommon to hear claims that it's too difficult,” says a fisheries biologist for NOAA Fisheries. “And that is fundamentally untrue. The traditional knowledge shows us that fish can be moved and that people have been doing it since time immemorial.”

The wisdom passed down over the ages gave us a solution to a current crisis, climate change climate change
Climate change includes both global warming driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases and the resulting large-scale shifts in weather patterns. Though there have been previous periods of climatic change, since the mid-20th century humans have had an unprecedented impact on Earth's climate system and caused change on a global scale.

Learn more about climate change . Doesn’t that give you hope for the future?

We’ve assisted Tribes with restoration projects on black-footed ferrets, California condors, burbot, and more. Often, as you will see, we are following the conservation leadership of Tribes.

That is a goal.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service supports Tribes as they exercise their sovereignty in the management of fish and wildlife resources.

And we are committed to respecting that sovereignty.

We are providing financial backing for the hiring of four wildlife biologists by the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society. We helped fund a program at the University of Montana to better support Native American graduate students. Our Tribal Wildlife Grants are expanding Tribes’ natural resource capacity. We are working with other Department of the Interior agencies to use a portion of the Deepwater Horizon settlement money to fund a Tribal Youth Conservation Corps with six Tribes on the Gulf Coast.

More than that, I have signed several Director’s Orders to improve Tribal relations, and we have revised, or are revising, key policies in dealing with Indigenous people.

Looking at the successful projects in this issue, it is clear the keys are communication, relationship-building, and cooperation, and we’re getting better at all of those.

We aren’t there yet, but  I am committed to transforming our Service culture to one of belonging for our employees and partners who have felt marginalized for too long.

Yes, we have a moral, ethical, and often legal responsibility to welcome Tribes to the table where conservation decisions are made. But, as with our work on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility, it is also about finding effective solutions to our conservation challenges.

Working with Tribal professionals brings new wisdom to a problem, and that can bring a solution.

The Winnemem Wintu Tribe, for instance, shared their traditional ecological knowledge to guide the salmon move.

Strengthening Tribal relations is one of my top priorities. More than that, it is necessary in 21^st century conservation on Indigenous land (America).