And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
From the Los Angeles Times. . .
Martha Ture
U.S., Death Valley Indians Strike a Unique Land Deal
By FRANK CLIFFORD, Times Environmental Writer
small California Indian tribe, all but exiled from its homeland in Death
Valley years ago, has struck a precedent-setting deal with the federal
government to serve as partners in the management of the
3.2-million-acre national park.
The agreement with the Timbesha Shoshone is "a new template on how
to deal with Native Americans in the [national] parks," said Don Barry,
assistant U.S. Interior secretary for parks and wildlife. Officials hope
that the pattern can be used in other parks where Indians have
long-standing claims on land.
From Alaska to Florida, a number of tribes have been pushing in
recent years to build homes and businesses on parklands they once
occupied.
The Death Valley deal, which Congress must still approve, is unique
because it combines acquisition of land with broad management powers,
according to the federal officials who have been presiding over the
negotiations with the tribe.
Indians have asserted claims to national park holdings, including
some in Alaska, the Everglades in Florida and areas ranging from the
Great Smokies in North Carolina to Big Horn National Recreation Area in
Montana. In the Everglades, pressure from the tribes led to legislation
last year that overrode a veto by park officials of a wetlands
development by the Miccosukee Indians.
The Death Valley agreement allows the Timbesha to have their own
land and develop it, but it sets limits on how much can be built,
federal officials said.
In addition to acquiring 300 acres at Furnace Creek, the center of
the park's visitor activities, the tribe will have exclusive use of an
adjacent 1,000 acres and share in the management of a 300,000-acre
expanse of parkland to be known as the Timbesha natural and cultural
preservation area.
Just outside the park, the tribe will also gain ownership of
several pieces of property totaling more than 6,000 acres. Those
parcels, in California and Nevada, are currently administered by the
U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
At Furnace Creek, the tribe will be able to build 50 houses, a
government complex, a cultural center and an inn.
The agreement is much more modest than the deal originally sought
by the Timbesha for ownership of 5,000 acres at Furnace Creek alone.
Nevertheless, tribal officials have indicated satisfaction with the
agreement in its present form.
"We believe the draft agreement is fair," said Barbara Durham, the
tribe's administrator. "The Park Service is recognizing that we have a
right to be here."
From the point of view of the park service, which has been
criticized for trivializing the role of Native Americans in parks, "this
agreement is special because preservation of the Timbesha way of life
now becomes an official purpose of the park, and that will make it a
better, more interesting place to visit," said Pat Parker, chief of the
National Park Service's American Indian Liaison Office.
"Now visitors will have a chance to learn firsthand the human
history of the park from the people who made that history," Parker said.
"After all," said Barry, "this park is all about 1,000 years of
Timbesha culture and history, and it only makes sense for the tribe to
be the interpreters of their own traditions."
The way the agreement was reached was also unique, Parker said,
"with the tribe selecting land areas of particular importance to them
and saying how they want to live in the park."
In particular, the tribe wanted to resume traditional harvesting
activities, including picking berries and pine nuts and taking willow
branches for basket making.
For centuries the Timbesha Shoshone were the only people who knew
how to survive in Death Valley, and their stewardship of the land is now
credited with keeping the desert vegetation and scattered water sources
in better shape than they are in today.
"Because we have not been able to interact with the land, the
wildlife and plants have suffered," Durham said. "A lot of the springs
that we kept clean have been clogged up with debris, and where we used
to be able to clear out the undergrowth, a lot of the vegetation died
out," she said.
Since 1933, when Death Valley was added to the park system, the
Timbesha had been confined to 40 acres. They were not allowed to own
land in the park or to tend the plants traditionally used for sustenance
and medicine.
As a result, most members of the landless tribe, which today
numbers fewer than 300, moved out of Death Valley.
Negotiations between the tribe and the park service got off to a
shaky start four years ago when federal officials balked at a joint
sovereignty proposal that they feared would give the tribe veto-proof
authority to build whatever it wanted in a vast area of the park.
"The park service told us there was no suitable land for us in the
park and suggested we move 30 miles north," Durham said.
The two sides said they were able to return to the bargaining
table, in part, due to the efforts of author and University of Colorado
law professor Charles Wilkinson, who has helped settle land use disputes
with other tribes and who was retained as a "facilitator" in the talks
with the Timbesha.
"What really brought this agreement into proper focus," said
Wilkinson, "is when it became clear how much better the park would be as
a result of the Timbesha presence."
Assistant Interior Secretary Barry echoed those sentiments.
"I sat down under the trellis between the two trailers where
Pauline Estevez [the tribal president] lives, and she talked about the
springs that have disappeared and the areas where certain plants are the
sweetest, and it became obvious how much the Timbesha were part of the
place."
Copyright 1999 Los Angeles Times. All Rights Reserved
http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/FRONT/t000017616.html
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
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