Tribal Partnerships
Acquisition with ultimate ownership by tribal or other government agencies (with mandates to manage for tribal values) can permanently prevent destructive activities, ensure tribal access, and apply the protection of federal laws to graves and other important sites. In addition, acquisition of certain property rights to be owned by tribal or other government agencies, and the remainder rights retained by private landowners can be a winning combination. TPL--through its legal and real estate expertise, access to financial capital, and ability to build relationships with private land owners--has negotiated difficult transactions to protect thousands of acres important to Native Americans. In the Northwest alone, TPL has acquired twenty such properties totaling over 32,000 acres and valued at over $27 million.
TPL's particular expertise lies in discovering new sources of public and private funding for tribal lands such as the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, mitigation funds provided by private utilities or agencies, internal Army Corps of Engineers appropriations, or funding from Department of Agriculture. TPL creatively and aggressively seeks out new sources of funding that can be devoted to the conservation of tribal lands. TPL worked with Massachusetts state agencies to acquire funds to purchase an undeveloped residential lot containing 17 human remains dating back to the 17th century-this land was then donated to the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. Private donations permitted the acquisition of the Bear River Massacre site with the eventual transfer of the land into Northwest Band of Shoshone ownership.
By placing key properties under option, and thereby establishing a deadline for action beyond which the property (and opportunity) will be lost, TPL also brings project management and focus to land conservation efforts and can inform funders of opportunities once TPL and partners have laid the groundwork. Optioned projects also give tribes and the general public specific properties around which to rally their support by raising public awareness and affording time to develop partnership with other groups and agencies.
TPL is also able to conserve land in ways that can satisfy diverse interests. For example, TPL was asked to find a solution to a problem involving a parcel in Minnesota. The privately owned property contained a stretch of Eagle Creek, one of the last remaining trout streams in the Twin Cities area. It also contained an active artesian spring known as Boiling Springs that is sacred to the Shakopee Mdwekaton Sioux. The tribe, the state, an environmental organization, and the city all had different positions on how to protect the resource. TPL was able to craft a solution that satisfied the parties by coordinating funding from a variety of public and private partners, negotiating an option agreement with the landowners, established trail and conservation easements, and ultimately sold the land and the easements to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. As a result, a 52-acre protected corridor of land along Eagle Creek was created, including Boiling Springs. TPL's crucial role in the project was summed up by Elliott Olson, state chairman of Trout Unlimited: "Basically, it was TPL's expertise in doing real estate deals, especially in a public environment, that made the whole thing possible. We could not have done it without TPL. Unequivocally."
Sometimes acquiring and conveying the full ownership of land to a tribe or agency is not an option, nor the preferred conservation strategyIn these instances, landowners, tribes and public agencies can benefit from employing conservation easement acquisition tools. North of McCall, Idaho, lies a wonderful conservation easement demonstration. Conservation-minded landowners of Burgdorf Meadows, the Nez Perce Tribe, and the State of Idaho partnered with TPL to draft an easement and to secure public utility mitigation funds administered by the Bonneville Power Administration.
Owners of Burgdorf Meadows, a 160-acre private holding in Idaho's Payette National Forest, wanted to protect the land and needed a cash return from the process to manage other properties. Instead of selling out and moving away, they chose to partner in the conservation effort, and continue to own the land. With escalating real estate values and second home/recreational retreat development in the region, the goal of all partners has been to assure the property would be permanently protected from development. A conservation easement purchase extracted the development possibilities from the land, compensated the landowners for the value of the development potential, and provided a long-range conservation direction for the property. The centerpiece of the conservation easement is 94 acres containing critical spawning habitat for the wild Chinook salmon and forage for deer, elk, and moose. A logical partner with the landowners has been the Nez Perce Tribe. The tribehistorically visited this site for hunting, fishing, and gathering.Tribal elders as well as members of the landowner's family still remember tribal pilgrimages to the meadows.
The state of Idaho made the acquisition of the conservation easement a top priority and along with the Nez Perce, the landowners, ,and TPL sought Northwest Power Planning Council (NWPPC) approval to use Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) funding to buy the land. Today, with TPL's help the Nez Perce Tribe, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, and the landowners jointly manage the fish and wildlife aspects of the property while the land remains in private ownership. Burgdorf Meadows is a prime example of TPL being able to work with conservation minded landowners, tribes and other governments to create conservation solutions.
Its many successes notwithstanding, TPL and its tribal partners face ongoing challenges protecting ancestral lands from development. One site that still faces an uncertain future is Lyle Point, Washington, a 35-acre peninsula in the eastern Columbia Gorge that juts into the Columbia River at its confluence with the Klickitat River. Lyle Point is traditional salmon-fishing ground for the Yakama Nation, especially its Klickitat Band or River People, whose ancestors, some believe, are buried on the point. When the land was approved for a luxury subdivision, TPL acquired a temporary option to buy the $2.5 million property, but now must raise several hundred thousand dollars to extend its option agreement while also working to identify a long-term steward to own and manage the land.
Like the Nez Perce, the River People were a thriving population when Lewis and Clark encountered them in 1805; just 50 years later, they had been coerced into ceding most of their lands and were confined to reservations. It is to stave the continuing loss of lands important to Native Americans that the Tribal Lands Program was established.
TPL has a long, successful history working with a variety of public agencies. TPL is able to step in to acquire the land or to otherwise assume site control, effectively taking the land off the market while funds are assembled that permit the land's transfer to an appropriate steward. These same experiences are now being used to create tribal partnerships where the most effective way to protect and preserve lands of traditional significance to Native Americans is through acquisition, with ultimate ownership by a tribe or a public agency that will manage the land to safeguard tribal values. In some cases, land can come under immediate threat of development providing little time to respond.
TPL can assist tribes by providing staff with the ability to negotiate complex conservation real estate transactions and help open the doors to seek land acquisition dollars.TPL has completed many projects in the United States to protect native lands and to ensure tribal access and participation in their management. Nationally, TPL has used its conservation real estate expertise to help protect nearly 1,600 special places for parks, greenways, recreation areas, historic landmarks, forests, watersheds, wilderness, and tribal ownership. Specializing in conservation real estate, TPL applies its expertise in negotiations, finance, and law to purchase land for public use and hold it until a public agency can acquire it.
TPL's Tribal and Native Lands Program is guided by an advisory council composed of Indian leaders, joined by other Americans committed to the protection and restoration of tribal lands and culture. TPL's Tribal and Native Lands Program will continue to identify and protect lands that represent the environmental, economic, and cultural legacy of America's first people and to ensure tribal participation in the stewardship of their ancestral lands.
Updated 5/2006