Pine Ridge Residents in Need of Immediate Assistance

Winter storms have slammed the Reservation and many residents are in need of immediate assistance for firewood, food, water, etc. Click on the link below to hear Pine Ridge Resident Leola One Feather describe the situation. 



Village Earth has set up an urgent action fund to support families in need on the Reservation. Use the link on the right to contribute. 


I want to thank everyone who has contributed thus far. We've been purchasing Sioux Nation Grocery gift cards for people to purchase food and any other needed supplies. 


I just got off the phone with Leola One Feather who said there is a need for:

• Snow shoes for people who are trapped in remote trailers so they can get to the road to get supplies. 
• Thermal Underwear
• Warm Socks. 

If you're interested in donating any of these items you can contact me at david@villageearth.org

Reflections on the Cobell Settlement and Indian Land Consolidation

December marked an important milestone for Native American's across the country. In a landmark 3.2 Billion dollar settlement, the Obama administration finally ended a 14 year class-action lawsuit brought against the U.S. Department of Interior by some 300,000 Native American land owners. In their suit, Native Americans argued that the government failed to pay them nearly 42 billion dollars in lease revenue collected by the government over the past 120 years serving as their self-appointed Trustee. After years of stalling with disingenuous accounting, racking up millions of dollars in legal fees charged to tax payers, withholding and even destroying evidence, a crime for which the Department of Interior was held in contempt of court, the government finally conceded and agreed to settle with the Plaintiffs. According to the lead Plaintiff, Eloise Cobell, “there is little doubt this is significantly less than the full amount to which individual Indians are entitled...Nevertheless we are compelled to settle now by the sobering realization that our class grows smaller each year, each month, and every day, as our elders die, and are forever prevented from receiving their just compensation. We also face the uncomfortable, but unavoidable fact that a large number of individual money account holders currently subsist in the direst poverty, and this settlement can begin to address that extreme situation and provide some hope and a better quality of life for their remaining years.”


Village Earth has reported regularly on the developments in this case for several years now as we are working at the front lines of helping families remove their lands from the Government's “broken” leasing system, a term used by Larry Ecohawk, head of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs in a speech at last week's Intertribal Agriculture Conference in Las Vegas and attended by Village Earth. While we do not challenge the Plaintiffs for their decision to accept such a low settlement, we do however find it deeply unsettling that desperation was a factor, a desperation largely born from the same injustices this case was all about. According to the Plaintiff's website, the settlement guarantees Native Americans a “$1.4 billion Accounting/Trust Administration Fund and a $2 billion Trust Land Consolidation Fund. The Settlement also creates an Indian Education Scholarship fund of up to $60 million to improve access to higher education for Indians.” Based on our experiences working with families and the Tribe assisting with the consolidation and utilization of fractionated interests were are particularly concerned with the proposal for the $2 Billion dollar Trust Land Consolidation Fund. According to the settlement agreement, this program will operate in accordance with the Land Consolidation Program authorized under 25 U.S.C. §§ 2201 also known as the American Indian Probate Reform Act (AIPRA) and Indian Lands Consolidation Act (ILCA). According to the settlement agreement and consistent with the AIPRA the purpose of  the Trust Land Consolidation Fund shall be used solely for the following purposes: (1) acquiring fractional interests in trust or restricted lands; (2) implementing the Land Consolidation Program; and (3) paying the costs related to the work of the Secretarial Commission on Trust Reform, including costs of consultants to the Commission and audits recommended by the Commission. An amount up to a total of no more than fifteen percent (15%) of the Trust Land Consolidation Fund shall be used for purposes (2) and (3) above. The general impact of ILCA programs is a transfer of ownership of land from Individual Indians to Tribal Governments. While this may be an effective strategy for some Tribes, our experience working at the grassroots level on the Pine Ridge Reservation has shown us that many people on the reservation feel that the ILCA exploits the desperation of individuals, tempting them with short-term monetary gain but then leaving them with little long-term benefit. It has also caused tensions within families who feel their allotted lands, even though they are fractionated, should be retained for the benefit of future generations. Despite ILCA, other options exist for individuals, families, and communities to consolidate their lands including Tribal land exchange programs, partitioning, gift deeds, and creating wills however, right now, there is virtually no support for these programs. In fact, our research on Pine Ridge demonstrates that the Federal Government is a primary bottleneck in the whole process. Furthermore, when you consider that, in the case of the Pine Ridge Reservation, all Tribally owned lands have been tied up in loans to the Federal Housing Administration for the past 25 years, this has forced the tribe to lease their lands out, oftentimes to non-tribal members, greatly limiting their ability to develop these lands in a way that will benefit their members. A real solution to repairing the injustices of the past would look at each reservation in a holistic way and consider these differences. ILCA consolidation may not be the best option for each Reservation in those cases, supporting grassroots consolidation efforts my have a greater impact on promoting self-determination and development. Furthermore, it makes little sense to promote tribal and consolidation when at the same time you have the Tribe's hands tied-behind it's back with debt to where they benefit very little from those lands.

Settlement Agreement Reached in Cobell v. Salazar

Taken from: http://www.cobellsettlement.com/

A proposed Settlement has been reached with American Indian Plaintiffs in a long-running class action lawsuit against the federal government for mismanagement of individual Indian trust accounts and trust assets. The Settlement is with the Secretary of the Interior, the Assistant Secretary of the Interior-Indian Affairs, and the Secretary of the Treasury. The individual Indian trust accounts relate to land, oil, natural gas, mineral, timber, grazing, water and other resources and rights on or under individual Indian lands.

The class action lawsuit claims that the federal government failed to fulfill its financial responsibility for the individual Indian trust resulting in the loss, misdirection, and unaccountability of several billion dollars of monies held in trust or which should have been held in trust by the United States for Indian beneficiaries in Individual Indian Money (IIM) accounts.

Under the terms of the Settlement in Cobell v. Salazar, the federal government will create a $1.412 billion Accounting/Trust Administration Fund and a $2 billion Trust Land Consolidation Fund. The Settlement also creates a federal Indian Education Scholarship fund of up to $60 million to improve access to higher education for Indian youth. The Settlement also includes a commitment by the federal government to appoint a commission that will oversee and monitor specific improvements in the Department's accounting for and management of individual Indian trust assets, going forward.

The Agreement creates two groups of Indians eligible to receive Settlement money - the Historical Accounting Class and the Trust Administration Class. Details of who is eligible follow.


What will IIM Account Holders and other Class Members get?

Most individual Indian beneficiaries are included in both Classes and will receive no less than $1,500 under the terms of the Settlement. There will be a number of distributions:

Each member of the Historical Accounting Class will initially be paid $1,000 after Final Approval of the Settlement. Members of the Trust Administration Class will be paid a "pro rata" share of the $1,412 billion Fund starting with a baseline of $500. This means that each Class Member will get at least $500 and then a percentage of the remaining Fund based on the number of individuals sharing in the Fund. Certain costs, reserves and attorneys fees will be paid out of this Fund before distribution of the pro rata share.

USDA Misrepresents Situation of Native American Farmers

On the eve of important White House meeting with Tribal Leaders, USDA press release celebrates increase in Native American Farmers but omits information provided in an earlier report that explained the dramatic increase in the numbers as erroneous.

For Immediate Release

Village Earth - Nov. 4, 2009 - Today, the USDA issued a press release celebrating the increase in Native American Farmers and Ranchers since their 2002 Census of Agriculture. This comes on the eve an important and highly publicized meeting between the White House and Tribal representatives from across the country.

"In celebration of American Indian Heritage Month the U.S. Department of Agriculture today reported that there are nearly 80,000 American Indian operators on 61,472 farms and ranches across the United States. This represents an 88-percent increase over the number of American Indian farmers USDA counted in 2002."

Just a week earlier, Village Earth issued a similiar release but provided greater context for the extreme racial disparity that exists in agricultural production on most Native American Reservations. According to Village Earth, "this most recent report by the USDA is a gross misrepresentation of the data, suggesting that the increase is due to greater inclusion and outreach when in fact it is the result of the USDA expanding the sampling area of the Census from Reservations in just three States to Reservations nationwide." Today's press release omits information, provided in an earlier USDA report that explained the dramatic increase in the numbers.

"Part of the reason for the dramatic increase in the number of American Indian farmers is a change in the way the 2007 Census of Agriculture counted farm operators on reservations in the Southwestern United States. In 2002, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service conducted a pilot program to count American Indian operators on reservations in three states — North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana — rather than simply counting a single reservation as a single farm operation. In 2007, the pilot program was extended throughout the United States. The majority of the increase in the number of American Indian operators occurred in just two states: Arizona and New Mexico, where the count increased from 694 in 2002 to 12,929 in 2007."

Today's press release also failed to create a context for the larger picture of the racial disparity in agriculture that exists on most Native American Reservations today. While the USDA is correct to report that there are "nearly 80,000 American Indian operators on 61,472 farms and ranches across the United States," that number only represent 1.6% of the total farmers and ranchers operating on Native American Reservation today, illustrating that non-native producers dominate on most Native American Reservations. In terms of income, the total value of agricultural commodities produced on Native American Reservations in 2007 totaled over $2.1 Billion dollars, yet, only 16% of that income went to Native American farmers and ranchers.

As reported earlier by Village Earth, the unequal land-use patterns seen on Native American Reservations today is a direct outcome of discriminatory lending practices, land fractionation and specifically Federal policies over the last century that have excluded native land owners from the ability to utilize their lands while at the same time opening them up to non-native farmers and ranchers. Discriminatory lending practices, as argued in court cases such as the pending Keepseagle vs. Vilsack, claim that Native Americans have been denied roughly 3 billion in credit.  Another significant obstacle is the high degree of fractionation of Reservation lands caused by the General Allotment Act (GAA) of 1887. Over a century of unplanned inheritance under the GAA has created a situation where reservation lands have become severely fractionated. Today, for a Native land owner to consolidate and utilize his or her allotted lands they may have to get the signed approval of dozens, hundreds or even thousands of separate land owners. As a result of this complexity, most Indian land owners have few options besides leasing their lands out as part of the Federal Government's leasing program. Additionally, historical and racially-based policies by the Federal government have been designed to exclude Native American farmers and ranchers from utilizing their own lands, opening them up to non-natives for a fraction of their far market value.

USDA Census Reveals Non-Native Producers Dominate on Most Native American Reservations

By David Bartecchi and Courtney Hunter 
Fort Collins, CO (Village Earth) 10/23/09 -- Recently released 2007 Agricultural data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for Native American Reservations reveal that non-native agricultural producers dominate on most Native American Reservations in the United States. This is according to a study conducted by Village Earth, a Fort Collins based not-for-profit organization that works on indigenous land use issues on Native American Reservations in the United States and around the world. According to Village Earth's study of the USDA data, in total numbers, Native Americans represent only 1.6% of the farmers and ranchers operating on Reservation lands. Today, for most Native American Reservations in the United States, more than two-thirds of the farms and ranches are controlled by non-natives. As might be expected, this disparity in land use has had a dramatic impact on the ability of Native Americans to fully benefit from their natural resources. Statistics on income reveal that the total value of agricultural commodities produced on Native American Reservations in 2007 totaled over $2.1 Billion dollars, yet, only 16% of that income went to Native American farmers and ranchers. 

The USDA has conducted its quinquennial Census of Agriculture for every county in the United States since 1840 but it was not until 2007 when it began collecting this agricultural data for Native American Reservations. While Village Earth recognizes that this data-set is not complete, representing only 73 of the 388 Native American Reservations in the U.S., the results are consistent with data collected by a study from Colorado State University and with its experience working with Native producers on the Pine Ridge Reservation in their efforts to utilize their own lands.

The unequal land-use patterns seen on reservations today is a direct outcome of discriminatory lending practices, land fractionation and specifically, Federal policies over the last century that have excluded native land owners from the ability to utilize their lands while at the same time opening it up to non-native farmers and ranchers. Discriminatory lending practices, as argued in court cases such as the pending Keepseagle vs. Vilsack, claim that Native Americans have been denied roughly 3 billion in credit.  Another significant obstacle is the high degree of fractionation of Reservation lands caused by the General Allotment Act (GAA) of 1887. Over a century of unplanned inheritance under the GAA has created a situation where reservation lands have become severely fractionated. Today, for a Native land owner to consolidate and utilize his or her allotted lands they may have to get the signed approval of dozens, hundreds or even thousands of separate land owners. As a result, most Indian land owners have few options besides leasing their lands out as part of the Federal Government's leasing program. Additionally, historical and racially-based policies by the Federal government have been designed to exclude Native American farmers and ranchers from utilizing their own lands, opening them up to non-natives for a fraction of their far market value.

The leasing of Indian Lands by the Federal Government dates back the the the Act of February 28, 1891 which amended the General Allotment Act to give the Secretary of the Interior the power to determine whether an Indian allottee had the “mental or physically qualifications” to enable him to cultivate his allotment. In such cases, the Superintendent was authorized to lease Indian lands to non-tribal members. In 1894, the annual Indian Appropriation Act increased the agricultural lease term to 5 years, 10 years for business and mining leases, and permitted forced leases for allottees who “suffered” from “inability to work their land.” Clearly designed to alienate lands from Native Americans, this act dramatically increased the number of leases issued across the country. For the Pine Ridge Reservation the practice was so widespread, that in a 1915 Government report, it was noted that over 56% of the adult males on the reservation were considered incapable of managing their lands and thus they were forcefully leased out. In 1920 the Government Superintendent for Pine Ridge wrote, “It has been my policy to insist upon the utilization of all these lands and the grass growing upon it and this has restricted members of the tribe owning stock to their own allotments, and such land adjoining that they have leased.” Not only were a great number of Native Americans denied the ability to utilize their allotted lands, many did not even receive the lease income collected by the Federal Government. Today, it is estimated that Native Americans are owed upwards of 47 billion dollars by the Federal Government for 120 years of oil, timber, agriculture, grazing and mining leases (See Cobell vs. Salazar).

According to Village Earth, the disparity in land use on Native American Reservations will only worsen with each new generation until Native Americans are given a fair chance at accessing the credit and other forms assistance available to non-natives. Additionally, the Government should honor its obligation as trustee and pay the over 47 billion dollars in revenue it has received for the leasing of Native American lands over the last 120 years. Lastly, the Department of Interior should place special emphasis on repairing the fractionation problem created by the General Allotment Act by providing information and support to individual allottees to consolidate and utilize their lands. In particular, speeding up the appraisal and survey process for which they are responsible.

LAKOTA BUFFALO CARETAKERS COOPERATIVE TO CELEBRATE DONATION & REFLECT ON PROGRESS

On Friday, September 25, members of the Lakota Buffalo Caretakers Cooperative (LBCC) will be celebrating the donation of 6 head of buffalo that will be added to their herds. For the 6th consecutive year, Danylchuck Buffalo Ranch, based in Rye, Colorado, will generously donate buffalo to the cooperative. Members of the LBCC will be present at the celebration, making it an exciting opportunity for those interested in learning more about issues of sustainable agriculture, food sovereignty, and Lakota ranching ethics. The event will be free and open to the public, held at the Historic Federal Building, 421 North Main Street, Pueblo, CO.

The Lakota Buffalo Caretakers Cooperative is 100% Native American owned and operated, making it (to the best of our knowledge) the only Native American run small family cooperative of buffalo caretakers in the United States. The cooperative is located on the Pine Ridge Reservation, located in South Dakota. All of the meat produced by the group comes from buffalo that are raised on open ranges, grazing on wild grass, and respectfully harvested in the field. This culturally significant and ethical approach to meat production supports the members’ overarching commitments to the restoration of the northern plains ecology, self-sufficiency and strengthening the sovereignty and self-determination of the Oglala Lakota Nation and all indigenous peoples.

After becoming incorporated in the state of South Dakota and having its labels approved by the USDA, the LBCC began selling retail meat last January. The cooperative was the progeny of Village Earth’s (a Fort Collins based NGO, which supports sustainable development through empowerment) Adopt-a-Buffalo project. The project was started as part of Village Earth’s larger vision to support Lakota families in reclaiming and utilizing their legally allotted lands. Due to significant legislation produced in the late 1800s and early 1900s, on Pine Ridge Reservation over 60% of individual Native American land is being leased out, primarily by non-tribal members. Through the Adopt-a-Buffalo initiative, Village Earth helped recover over 2000 acres for buffalo restoration, releasing over 82 head of buffalo onto these lands. Due to the historical and spiritual significance of the buffalo for the Lakota people, Village Earth hopes this project will be a significant step in the process of restoring the reservation’s economy and strengthening cultural pride. 

If you have more questions about the event, the LBCC, Village Earth, or any of the larger underlying issues, please contact David Bartecchi at (970) 491-0633 or david@villageearth.org.

High Country News Features Village Earth's Work on Pine Ridge

Read about Village Earth's work on the Pine Ridge Reservation in Aug 31, 2009 edition High Country News, the award winning news magazine that covers the American West's public lands, water, natural resources, grazing, wilderness, wildlife, logging, politics, communities, growth and other issues now changing the face of the West. From the Northern Rockies to the desert Southwest, from the Great Plains to the West Coast, High Country News’ coverage spans 11 Western states and is the leading source for regional environmental news, analysis and commentary, making it an essential resource for those who care about the West.

The article (above) written by Josh Zaffos, profiles some of the Lakota families that Village Earth has been working with for several years to utilize and protect the remaining lands on the reservation. The article does an excellent job of describing the challenges faced by tribal members and they struggle to utilize their own lands. According to research done by Zaffos, "more than 19,000 members of the Oglala Sioux tribe have claims to more than 203,000 properties." The article describes some of the history behind this situation.

Under the Dawes Act of 1887, the federal government doled out 160 acres of land to the head of each Indian family at Pine Ridge and other reservations. Congress could sell off any un-allotted lands, while the Bureau of Indian Affairs would maintain a tribal trust fund of revenues from mineral, oil, timber and grazing leases. (That trust fund is the subject of the ongoing lawsuit brought by Blackfeet tribal member Elouise Cobell in 1996.)

Then, in 1906, Congress passed the Burke Act, which allowed the BIA to measure Native Americans' "competence" to handle their homestead lands, based on ancestry, cultural assimilation -- even the length of a person's hair. The assessments at Pine Ridge underscored official prejudice: By 1915, government agents had classified 56 percent of the Oglala Lakota living on the reservation as "incompetent," and 700,000 additional acres were sold off before the practice ceased in 1934. Other parcels allotted to "incompetent" Indians were shifted into the leasing system, which has served mostly non-Native ranchers. But "competent" Indians didn't make out much better, since they were forced to pay taxes on their allotments. Ninety-five percent of these lands were eventually sold to non-Natives for a fraction of their real value.

And the allotment system had lasting cultural impact: By chopping up the land base, it effectively ended communal hunting practices. As the original allottees died and their children inherited the land, parcels were fractionated among dozens -- sometimes hundreds -- of heirs.

To read the entire article go to http://www.hcn.org/issues/41.15/a-new-land-grab