From Native Organizers Alliance Action Fund
Earlier this month, the Biden administration released guidance for federal agencies to consider and include Indigenous knowledge in federal research, policies, management, and decision-making. But including Indigenous knowledge in federal decision-making means including Indigenous voices in decision-making too and honoring Tribal treaty rights to co-steward and co-manage lands and waters. The guidance does not require federal agencies to act. Instead, it has made suggestions, including to “consider” co-stewardship of federal lands and waters with Tribes.

But let’s be clear, that’s already Indigenous peoples’ inherent and legal right. The Biden administration’s guidance on Indigenous knowledge recommends that agencies recognize past injustice and “be cognizant that many Tribes and Indigenous Peoples were forcibly removed from their traditional homelands but still retain cultural connections and interests in these areas.” But it does not require agencies to correct those past injustices in the present, or to honor Indigenous peoples’ cultural and spiritual connections to federal lands and waters. We need President Biden and his administration to do more to keep their promises by respecting and fulfilling federal treaty rights.  

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