Representation & Preservation of Natural Resources on Tribal Land
Miriah Stevie DeDios
Jicarilla Apache Nation, Navajo Nation & Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo
Miriah Stevie DeDios
Jicarilla Apache Nation, Navajo Nation & Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo
“Jicarilla Apache Nation Flag.” Infobase, Facts On File. American Indian History, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=18626&itemid=WE43&iid=202314. Accessed 20 Sept. 2024.
DeDios, Miriah. Self Portrait Photo. Sept. 26, 2024.
“Navajo Nation Flag.” Infobase, Facts On File. American Indian History, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=18626&itemid=WE43&iid=202375. Accessed 20 Sept. 2024.
“Pueblo of Ohkay Owingeh Flag.” Infobase, Facts On File. American Indian History, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=18626&itemid=WE43&iid=244850. Accessed 25 Mar. 2025.
Personal Connection
DeDios, Miriah. "Go-Jii-Ya" Dulce, NM. Sept. 2023
My connection towards my topic is not personal but rather out of a curiosity that I have and that others in my community may have as well. Although residing within Dulce, I notice this issue is not talked about enough in my community. Relating to the issue, it is alarming to see that some of my community members are not considerate about the future but rather focused on the financial benefits that come from these resources within our land.
Identity
DeDios, Miriah. "Llanero" Dulce, NM. Sept. 2023
In this article, “Sharing One Skin,” by Jeanette Armstrong, she talks about what it means to be Okanagan and the different selves that makes a person while in her tribe’s beliefs. She believes that when all four selves intertwine you gain sanity. The Okanagan people are deeply connected with the environment such as nature. She represents Okanagan and has teachings but she does not speak for the Okanagan people. If the four selves are not together, they create a weakness within you. The community, land, responsibility, and creation of communities with heart are all essential to sharing the same skin as your community or your tribe’s members. “A fire that is not controlled can destroy.”
Armstrong, Jeanette. “Sharing One Skin: The Okanagan Community,” in Jerry Mander and Edward Goldsmith (eds), The Case Against the Global Economy. San Francisco, CA, Sierra Club Books, 1996. Pp 460-470.
DeDios, Miriah. "Home" Dulce, NM. Aug. 2023
Memories and stories are connected to our land and this is very well emphasized in the article, “How place names impact the way we see landscape,” by B. Toastie. As native people we have a strong connection to various landscapes. An important quote to me is “When an Indigenous place is named, or renamed, either its ancestral name or a new name, then you are evoking reconnection.” Our reservations or Pueblos are very important landscapes because it is where our ancestors have connections and have thrived for generations. They passed this land onto living descendants. Some of these tragedies, traumas, and injustices connected to the land are caused by colonial structure. “A lot of places are attached to story. And those stores are important for us to remember, because they are really telling us something about ourselves and our past.”
Toastie, B. “How place names impact the way we see landscape.” High Country News: Know the West, 1 May 2022, https://www.hcn.org/issues/54.5/people-places-how-place-names-impact- the-way-we-see-landscape.
DeDios, Miriah. "Sunset" Santa Fe, NM. April 2022
The assimilation process in early Native American education had much more impact than what is talked about. In the article, “And then I went to school,” by Joe Suina, he talks about the before, during, and after boarding schools. In the beginning, he felt connected to his community and liked who he was being a Pueblo Native while learning many things from his grandma. His
grandma taught him everything he wanted to know about being from Cochiti Pueblo. But once boarding schools were introduced he noticed a change within himself and now he began to question being Native. Due to boarding schools he felt ashamed of who he was and wanted to change. He was very fond of his grandma as he expressed his gratitude towards her throughout the article. He mentions the great and traditional woman she was. However, he knew that things would never be the same within his Pueblo again and felt sad that he had to change in order to adapt to the whiteman’s world.
Suina, Joseph “And I went to school” memories of a pueblo childhood,”. New Mexico Journal of Reading, Winter 1985, Vol. V, No.2
DeDios, Miriah. "Clouds" Dulce, NM. Sept. 2024
Native Americans are often overlooked and supposedly extinct, this is well discussed in the article, “Indians of North America: Conflict and Survival”, by Frank W. Porter III. The article talks about the early discovery of this new world by Christopher Columbus. While discovering this world, Europeans encountered Native Americans for the time. Europeans recognized the wealth of natural resources and were ignorant towards the spiritual, cultural, and intellectual riches of the Native people. It was then that Europeans attempted to change the Indigenous way of life. The author talks about Natives as a past tense signifying that we were “extinct”. The question asked was why Native people didn’t kill off the early settlers because we as Native people had the military skill if it had not been for the devastating epidemics and disruption of the ecology. Europeans had wondered where Natives came from. Historians believed that Indigenous people would be conquered and forced to live the ways of their conquerors. However, the reality of it was that the Native people resisted to be assimilated. When the United States acquired territory from France and Mexico, the federal government wanted to open this land to homesteaders. But Indian tribes that lived on the land had already signed treaties with the European government assuring their title to the land. This is when things took a turn for the worse resulting in land being taken away with force and Natives being relocated. Reservations were then established to quickly lead to termination of tribes.
HUGHES, A. L. Indigenous peoples and nature preservation. Salem Press Encyclopedia of Science, [s. l.], 2024. Disponível em: https://research-ebsco-com.sfis.idm.oclc.org/linkprocessor/plink?id=af19c20b-376a-3f4e-8562-792395a0d5ed. Acesso em: 1 out. 2024.
DeDios, Miriah. "Stone Lake" Dulce, NM. June 2024
Natural resources granted upon tribal lands face the threat of being taken advantage of, whether by states or the federal government. In a lawsuit against the State of New Mexico being filed by the Mescalero Apache Tribe, was to prevent the application of state fishing and hunting regulations to non-members of the Mescalero Apache within the tribe’s reservation in southern New Mexico. The Tribe filed suit in Federal District Court, seeking to prevent the state from controlling on-reservation hunting and fishing. The current reservation has more than 460,000 acres of which the Tribe owns all but 193.85 acres. Roughly 2,000 members of the tribe live on the reservation, along with resident federal employees of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service. The Mescalero Apache Tribe and Federal Government both oversee the fish and game management program. Following the Constitution and agreement with the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. “These efforts provide employment opportunities for members of the Tribe, and the sale of hunting and fishing licenses and related services generates income which is used to maintain the tribal government and provide services to tribal members.” I chose this quote from the lawsuit because I am fond of the tribe providing services and employment opportunities for their tribal members. Thus showing a sense of caringness while looking out for the people. Personally I believe that a lot of individuals would be willing to do anything for their people.
U.S. Supreme Court. “New Mexico v. Mescalero Apache Tribe.” Primary Source Documents: 1980 to 1989, Facts On File, 1983. American Indian History, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=18626&itemid=WE43&primarySourceId=8208.
DeDios, Miriah. "Scenery". Aug. 2023
Indigenous tribes were able to receive compensation for their land from the federal government through treaties and legal claims. In the article, “Native Alaskans Are Compensated for Their Land,” published by Salem Press Encyclopedia, Native Alaskans are given compensation for willingly giving up claims to their land that was historically occupied with ANCSA. In December 1971, an act was settled into law by President Richard M. Nixon. Thus, representing the peak of a long struggle over Native land claims that was made up for the immediate need to construct a pipeline to carry oil through lands that were claimed by Native Alaskans. In 1955, a Supreme Court ruling mentioned that the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution did not protect native land rights. Due to this, fear arose that there would not be little valuable land remaining to content native claims and opposition to state land claims. Discovery of Prudhoe Bay, on the North Slope of Alaska, was one of the largest oil fields ever founded. The government proposed that a pipeline be constructed across the state to transport oil to Valdez, a city easily accessible for loading petroleum because of its position as a year-round ice-free port on Prince William Sound. The pipeline construction was supposedly feared that it would lead to other violations on their land claims. However, other interested parties expect benefits from the construction of the pipeline, which promised lower petroleum prices from the Federal Government, revenue from the state, land preservation to environmentalists, and recently denied rights to Natives, especially the title to land that they believed was theirs. “Many Native Alaskans believed that existing laws, rather than protecting them, stripped them of rights to lands that they claimed. They generally did not consider either the state or federal government to be supportive of their concerns.” I chose this quote because I feel Indigenous people today are still fighting to keep their lands. They may be fighting to maintain the cultural aspects that make Native people unique to other races and ethnicities internationally.
FERNGREN, A.-M. E. Native Alaskans Are Compensated for Their Land. Salem Press Encyclopedia, [s. l.], 2023. Disponível em: https://research-ebsco-com.sfis.idm.oclc.org/linkprocessor/plink?id=212006b3-5ae1-3f71-92eb-246f6e919b1c. Acesso em: 1 out. 2024.
DeDios, Miriah. "Go-Yii-Ya Grounds" Dulce, NM. Sept. 2024
The Federal Government has repeatedly failed to consult with tribes about projects that could affect their way of life, this was highly perceived in the article, “Cultural resources are not a renewable thing for us”, by Sarah Sax. Within the article, a sacred site named “Pushpum” is threatened to be destroyed to build a giant battery that will help the Northwest decarbonize its power grid. This site is remembered in Yakama legend as a place of refuge for the members of the Rock Creek Band. The Yakama also use the site for ceremonial purposes and to collect almost three dozen different kinds of roots, flowers, and shrubs. The Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation strongly opposed the project. Constructing the storage system needed for this project would potentially destroy Pushpum. The area would have to be blasted to create two reservoirs and carve a tunnel through the hillside. Between 1933 and 1971, the United States built four dams on the Lower Columbia River, including the John Day Dam that destroyed fishing sites and settlements. “Today, even though the federal government must consult tribes on developments that affect them, the project can proceed regardless of whether tribes agree. Consent, however, would mean that tribes could stop developments that harm their cultural, archeological or sacred sites in unacceptable ways.” The Goldendale project is an example of what tribes, scholars, and the Government Accountability Office, consider a long history of inadequate and inconsistent tribal consultation.
Sax, Sarah. “‘Cultural resources are not a renewable thing for us.’” High Country News, 1 January 2022, https://www.hcn.org/issues/54-1/north-renewable-energy-cultural-resources-are-not-a-renewable-thing-for-us/. Accessed 5 November 2024.
DeDios, Miriah. "Landscape" Jemez Pueblo, NM. Aug. 2024
The fight for water quality standards between Indigenous peoples and the states have long been overdue as said in a news network article, “In long-sought change, states must consider tribal rights when crafting water rules”, by Alex Brown. In this article, a tribe in Minnesota fought for decades to see a change in water quality standards to protect wild rice. Wild rice is sacred to the Indigenous people surrounding the Great Lakes region because it is a part of their creation story. In May 2024, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) changed the Clean Water Act that requires states to consider tribal treaty rights when designing water quality regulations. This new rule allows them to consider treaty-protected aquatic species that depend on those waters. For example, states may be forced to lower pollution thresholds in some waters for tribal members who practice subsistence lifestyles and consume fish at higher rates than the general public. This has caused many issues to enforce these state regulations while considering tribal treaty rights. “ Historically, it’s taken litigation to get states to recognize tribes’ rights, and that’s really expensive.” Many tribal officials say that Idaho and other states have long ignored tribes’ attempts to have their rights considered. Some states say that the rule is necessary because states have demonstrated that they won’t listen to tribes unless forced to.
Brown, Alex. “In Long-Sought Change, States Must Consider Tribal Rights When Crafting Water Rules • Source: New Mexico.” Source New Mexico, 26 July 2024, sourcenm.com/2024/07/26/in-long-sought-change-states-must-consider-tribal-rights-when-crafting-water-rules/. Accessed 5 Nov. 2024.
“Amazon: What's happening with the world's largest rainforest in Brazil?” BBC, 15 January 2023, https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/64186648. Accessed 10 March 2025.
Oral storytelling is a big part of our communities that signify connections to our environment andpeople. This is heavily portrayed in the article, “The Role of Guadua Bamboo in Land Management and indigenous Perspectives on Bamboo Ecosystems in Southwestern Amazonia”, by Pirjo Kristina Virtanen and Francisco Apurina. Throughout the article, the importance of Bamboo is discussed and how bamboo has been a valuable resource to the Indigenous people of South Western Brazil. Different age groups all come together to tell the creation stories of the different kinds of bamboo and how their communities connect them to the bamboo. Bamboo is said to be significantly mentioned in their ancestral stories. In one of the many stories, many important staple crop pieces emerged from a man who had killed and eaten his wives. His punishment was death and from his ashes came bamboo. Thickens of bamboo also protect the homes of game animals and how these thickets protected the ancestral people of these tribes and provided shelter against their enemies. An important quote is, “The oral histories of the Manxineru and Apurina point to interconnections between human history and native bamboo.”
Virtanen, Pirjo Kristiina, et al. “The Role of Guadua Bamboo in Land Management and Indigenous Perspectives on Bamboo Ecosystems in Southwestern Amazonia.” Human Ecology, vol. 50, no. 6, Dec. 2022, p. 1077. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.sfis.idm.oclc.org/10.1007/s10745-022-00376-8.
Manjeshwar, Sanjana. “The Lasting Harms of Toxic Exposure in Native American Communities.” Berkeley Political Review, 10 July 2021, https://bpr.studentorg.berkeley.edu/2021/07/10/the-lasting-harms-of-toxic-exposure-in-native-american-communities/. Accessed 3 March 2025.
It’s important to keep areas pristine because eventually it will cause a concern in the environment. This is heavily portrayed in the article, “When Resource Companies Leave A Toxic Mess, First Nations are Stuck with the Cleanup”, by Tanya Talaga. In this article, a Creek known as Haggart Creek which was downstream from a Victoria Gold Corp.’s Eagle Gold Mine which caused an environmental disaster. The disaster was caused by four million tonnes of cyanide-laced rocks that gave way, causing infrastructure to be crushed which released two million tonnes of materials containing cyanide into the local environment. The Na-Cho Nyak Dun community was devastated that their traditional hunting grounds have been polluted. Unfortunately, the company claimed they were unable to pay the estimated cleanup cost of $150-million dollars. Yukon and First Nations officials are struggling to find out containment measures while testing waters, land, and animals. An important quote is, “Governments of all levels need to step up their environment policies, not override them for quick development.
Talaga, Tanya. “When Resource Companies Leave a Toxic Mess, First Nations Are Stuck with the Cleanup.” Globe & Mail (Toronto, Canada), 14 Dec. 2024, p. O11. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=815aacec-f34b-35b3-8f26-365590a0d070.
“FDPIR Self-Determination Demonstration Project | Food and Nutrition Service.” USDA Food and Nutrition Service, 30 January 2025, https://www.fns.usda.gov/fdpir/self-determination. Accessed 4 March 2025.
Tribal communities are given money to invest in plant protection projects to ensure safeguard of the food supply. In this article, “APHIS: USDA Invests More Than $21 Million in Tribal Communities to Fund Plant Protection Projects”, by Targeted News Service; Tribal Nations are said to play a critical role in protecting lands, agriculture, and ecosystems from invasive species, plant pests and diseases. The funds will support projects that cover a range of plant health protection activities including many other topics regarding the safety of the plants. The USDA is changing our nation's food system with a greater focus on more resilient local and regional food production as well as providing greater quality markets for all producers so that they have access to safe, healthy, and nutritious food. An important quote is, “USDA offers a variety of programs and services that are available to Tribal governments, communities and organizations, and the individual Native Americans and Alaskan Natives.”
"APHIS: USDA Invests More Than $2.1M in Tribal Communities to Fund Plant Protection Projects." Targeted News Service, 15 Jan. 2025. Gale OneFile: High School Edition, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A823598560/STOM?u=nm_s_santafeis&sid=ebsco&xid=32892021. Accessed 5 Feb. 2025.