Indian Country Today: Preserving tribal existence and protecting natural resources

Preserving tribal existence and protecting natural resources - Native American Rights Fund
Posted: August 19, 2005
by: Jean Johnson / Indian Country Today

Native American Rights Fund celebrates 35 years
Part two BOULDER, Col. - The American West is dry as a bone - and guess which senior water rights holders have often been last in line? According to NARF's executive director, John Echohawk, J.D., ''we recognized early on that this was a real critical issue for tribes, and we've been working 35 years on it. Water in the West is really valuable, and just like we thought, it's getting more and more important every day.'' Not to say that water is the only issue NARF tackles in its work to preserve tribal existence and protect the natural resources Indian country depends on. In the area of tribal existence alone, NARF's leadership has focused on the recognition and restoration of status to tribes that were terminated, tribal jurisdiction and taxation issues, and the Indian Economic Development Law Project through which NARF provides legal guidance to tribes and Indian communities. Of the many hundreds of tribes in the United States, 562 are federally recognized including the once-terminated Menominee and Siletz tribes, both of which NARF helped during its first decade of existence in the 1970s. Similarly in 1983, NARF assisted the newly recognized yet landless Kickapoo Indians in gaining a 100-acre land base along with federal health care, housing, and education services. The list goes on. Among others, including the 226 Native villages in Alaska, NARF helped the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona, Louisiana's Tunica-Biloxi Tribe, the Poarch Creek Tribe of Alabama and the Narragansetts of Rhode Island achieve federal restoration or recognition. As far as sovereignty goes, NARF doesn't miss a single resounding drum beat. NARF's publications state that ''NARF has handled several major cases with far-reaching implications affecting the sovereign powers of the tribes. These cases have involved the issues of jurisdiction and taxation in several states.'' For starters, NARF took South Dakota to task and said it couldn't charge Indians living on checkerboarded land with crimes. As NARF's editor Ray Ramirez explained, ''Former NARF Attorney Arlinda Locklear - the first Indian woman to argue a case before the Supreme Court - won a unanimous decision. The court rejected state jurisdiction, on 1.6 million acres of land that were opened to non-Indian settlement in 1908, in favor of federal and tribal control.'' The same thing happened with the Winnebagos and Nevada's Ely Colony Shoshones, with NARF helping both tribes to oust first Nebraska's and then Nevada's criminal jurisdiction over Indian people living on the reservation. Still, while jurisdiction is one side of the coin, taxation is the other, and NARF's been vigilant on that front as well trying to keep states' long fingers out of tribal pockets. The White Mountain Apache tribe was one group that benefited. In 1980 NARF assisted lead counsel that argued and won a case stating that states cannot apply license fees or taxes to on-reservation operations and transactions. NARF also extended its hand northward in 1985 and represented the Kluti Kaah Native Village of Copper Center in its effort to collect tribal taxes from oil companies. Of course, the oil companies have tried to get around the payments by arguing that the Kluti Kaah is not a federally recognized tribe and thus doesn't have the power to tax. In 1993, though, a federal district court ruled that the village might have the status to tax the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System that runs through their territory, so the case continues to make its way through the legal process with NARF's backing. Rounding out the work it does to promote and protect tribal existence is its Indian Economic Development Law Project, through which NARF provides legal guidance to tribes and Indian communities working to come into their own. Prior to the gaming industry taking off, extractive industries like mining and timber harvest were the mainstays of tribal economies. So, as would be expected of an organization of NARF's stature, the modern-day warriors stationed in Boulder have been instrumental in enabling tribes to take greater control over economic activity that affects their homelands. With the welfare of generations yet to come in mind, NARF has helped tribes assess the effects of business undertakings on their lands as well as work with the National Tribal Environmental Council and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to provide the tribes with the tools to regulate economic development on their lands and access funding for tribal environmental programs. Regulation, criminal jurisdiction, taxation, sovereignty, restoration, recognition. The trained minds at NARF connect the dots between these rather abstract concepts and the rhetoric, boiling them down in terms of everyday life for people in Indian country. Echohawk added that there's still plenty of work ahead; and that as a nonprofit, NARF continues to seek out grants and contributions necessary to provide financial support for its work. ''We are also able to accept fees for our services, and some of the work we do is actually paid for in whole or part by the Native American clients. Our fee income has increased in recent years as more tribes are able to afford legal counseling. At the same time, many tribes also have increased ability to make contributions, something that offsets our work with clients that can't afford to pay all or part of the costs.''

Preserving tribal existence and protecting natural resources - Native American Rights Fund