Issued in 2021, Joint Secretarial Order 3403 directed the Departments of Interior and Agriculture to increase tribal co-stewardship agreements and memoranda of understanding (MOUs). Co-stewardship focuses on collaboration where tribal nations provide input, share traditional ecological knowledge, and look after lands alongside federal agencies like the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and US Forest Service but the Feds retain final decision-making power. Co-management focuses on joint authority and represents a legal partnership where decision-making power is shared mutually between the tribal nation and the federal government.
“This MOU recognizes and encourages the tribal perspectives, voices and understanding as an essential part of what wilderness value brings,” said Shawn Cochran, forest supervisor for the Black Hills National Forest. “For the Lakota, Black Elk Wilderness is not only a cathedral that provides connection to the creator but an intimate human connection with the creator’s natural environment.” This agreement provides a structure for co-stewardship of the Black Elk Wilderness of Black Hills National Forest. On paper, it’s about cooperative planning, land and water preservation, cultural protection, habitat for wildlife, stewardship of wilderness, recreation and workforce. In practice, it is about working together to care for the land now and for future generations. “Signing the MOU today is a step in the right direction and allows us to get the funds to hire our own people to take care of this place,” according to Chairman Ryman LeBeau, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. [press release, US Forest Service]
Project 2025 and the extreme white wing of the Republican Party want a not so civil war over critical race theory and diversity, equity and inclusion or DEI because oligarchs fear an admission of guilt implies liability and they will be compelled to pay reparations to Indigenous and to the descendants of enslaved people. But, according to some estimates there is nearly $2billion in the fund for the Black Hills Claim just for instance so some day tribes will buy some of their own land from the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management in occupied South Dakota and Wyoming.
All nine South Dakota Tribes have voted to move forward on developing legislation to return federal lands in the Black Hills to the Great Sioux Nation – a historic display of Tribal unity and momentum around efforts to protect the Black Hills. At a recent tribal council meeting, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe passed a resolution to move forward on working together to protect sacred sites, clean drinking water, and ensure better land management through the development of legislation to return federal lands in the Black Hills to the Great Sioux Nation. [NDN Collective]The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 recognized over 38 million acres of land as official Crow or Apsáalooke territory, stretching across parts of modern-day Wyoming and Montana. This vast expanse included areas surrounding the Yellowstone River, the Three Forks region, and the Bighorn Mountain range. Negotiated on May 7, 1868. The Crow agreed to cede a large portion of their traditional 1851 territory, establishing a smaller reservation in Montana than aligned with the US Army.
Also known as the Sahnish, the Arikara (along with the Mandan and Hidatsa) signed agreements and were included in the broader peace treaties at Fort Laramie and Fort Berthold. Their lands in North Dakota were affirmed to allow for a combined joint territory, though they faced successive land losses shortly after.
Under the General Mining Act of 1872 Canadian miners have carte blanche to rape the Black Hills, so they are.