IS CO-MANAGEMENT A GOOD IDEA?

Will Indians manage public lands responsibly?

With the arrival in Washington of the Biden Administration, with Native American Deb Holland as Secretary of the Interior, the concept of co-management of certain federal lands and facilities has been introduced. What co-management means is that tribal authorities and U.S. government agencies work together to manage certain federal properties such as national parks, wildlife refuges, forests and BLM lands, including the wildlife found on those properties. In some instances, it means that tribes will be retained as the managers of those lands and be authorized to make land use decisions regarding those lands, including the extraction of mining and forestry resources.

Some environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society, are enthusiastic over the idea of involving the tribes since the lands were occupied and “managed” by them in earlier centuries. They argue that tribes have an historic interest in keeping those lands free of excessive commercial development.  Critics, however, contend that “co-management” is a ruse for allowing tribes to gain wealth by allowing timbering and mineral extraction to occur. Tribes are also claiming that they are not bound by state legal restrictions and are free to hunt on federal lands, without constraint, including the restrictions under the Endangered Species Act.

At least in some cases, courts have recently ruled in favor of tribal groups, especially where treaty agreements, though previously ignored, are presented as obligatory. This has spurred the effort to accelerate the enactment of co-management agreements where tribal groups agree to restrain commercial extraction, obtain compensation for management work, and observe good environmental policy. Critics would still prefer to see these federal properties managed by professionals, independent of tribal involvement.

The history of the European invasion of North America starting at the end of the fifteenth century is a sad and horrifying saga of how the native people suffered at the hand of the white man. As a result of disease, warfare, starvation and other genocidal campaigns, a population of as many as twenty-five million native people in North America was reduced to a mere million by the beginning of the twentieth century. Thus, it is hard not to feel sympathetic to the tribal remnants that exist, accord them the right of recovery and some measure of recompense. At the same time, we live in a time of environmental loss and threat and are impelled to conserve and preserve the natural environment that exists, and perhaps do what can be done to recover as much as is possible for the future health and welfare of future generations.

The ideal solution world be to acknowledge the treaty rights won previously by native Americans in return for their agreement to observe the highest and best standards of current environmental policy. Could the Macaw give up their practice of hunting whales while retaining the unused right to do so? Could the Nez Perce and other groups give up the practice of harvesting bison emigres from Yellowstone in return for acknowledgement of their right to do so. Are Indians willing to abandon some of their traditional ceremonies and practices and accommodate to the contemporary world – in return for greater recognition of their historic land rights? Is a new treaty agreement desirable?