tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106030492024-03-13T15:18:38.180-06:00Village Earth's Pine Ridge Project Blog<img src="http://www.villageearth.org/images/PR_BLOG_BANNER.jpg">Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.comBlogger86125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-17572774729657828962010-11-23T11:41:00.002-07:002010-11-23T11:42:56.791-07:00A message from Wakanyeja Pawicayapi Inc. - Porcupine, SD<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">As a supporter of grassroots organizations on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Village Earth would like to highlight the work of </span><span style="font-size: small;">Wakanyeja Pawicayapi, Inc. based out of the village of Porcupine. </span>Wakanyeja Means Children. Wakanyeja has much deeper meaning; “Wakan” is sacred and “yeja” is translated to mean “a gift” Pawicayapi: to put them first. We believe that the ‘Sacred Gift’ is at the center of the sacred hoop of life, and they must be protected and nurtured. They are our future and the most fragile. Wakanyeja Pawicayapi, Inc. (Children First) comes from the rebirth of the Lakota way of life and laws through education, healing, and collaboration. This holiday season, please consider donating directly to <span style="font-size: small;">Wakanyeja Pawicayapi by going to their website at <a href="http://www.wakanyeja.org/">http://www.wakanyeja.org/</a></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Please read the appeal below from </span><span style="font-size: small;">Taoiye Wakan Win, S. Ramona White Plume, </span><span style="font-size: small;">Executive Director, Wakanyeja Pawicayapi, Inc.</span></div><blockquote><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">A message from <a href="http://www.wakanyeja.org/">Wakanyeja Pawicayapi</a> Inc</span></span><br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;">As a Lakota culturally appropriate mental health resource for children/youth and families on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation since 1999, we do not receive federal funds for the services we provide. These services include primarily child/youth and family healing in the areas of trauma, suicide prevention, physical abuse and sexual abuse. </span> </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;">We respectfully ask for your support, both financially and spiritually. Your financial support will help us to purchase wood for the purification lodge ceremonies, purchase food to serve children/youth and families after the ceremonies and pay for general operating costs.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span> </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;">Your spiritual support in the form of appeals to the Creator on behalf of children/youth and families who continue to suffer from intergenerational grief, loss and trauma will strengthen the work that we do and will assist in the ongoing battle for our Lakota way of life and the future of our children and grandchildren. For more information contact Taoiye Wakan Win, S. Ramona White Plume, Executive Director, Wakanyeja Pawicayapi, Inc., P.O. Box 100, Porcupine, SD 57772, </span><span style="color: blue; font-size: small;"><u><a href="mailto:sonjar@wakanyeja.org">sonjar@wakanyeja.org</a></u></span><span style="font-size: small;">, 605-455-1226. Wopila (thank you).</span></div></blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-87283950037043350372010-11-09T13:15:00.001-07:002010-11-09T16:21:18.771-07:00Range Units and the History of Leasing Lands on the Pine Ridge Reservation<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Village Earth - Fort Collins, Co</span></span><br />
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Today, nearly 60% of the Pine Ridge Reservation is being leased out by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), often times to non-tribal members. Despite the fact that lands allotted to Lakotas have been in the federal leasing system for several generations, over 70% of families on the reservation would like to live on and utilize their allotted lands. <span style="font-size: small;">According to 2007 USDA Census of Agriculture for American Indian Reservations, the market value of agriculture commodities produced on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 2007 totaled $54,541,000. Yet, less than 1/3 ($17,835,000) of that income went to Native American producers.<b> </b> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">The reason so few Lakota's are utilizing Reservation lands today can be traced back to a history of discriminatory policies enacted by Congress just a few years after the signing of the General Allotment Act that opened up Reservation lands to non-Native producers. These policies affected Native Americans nationwide. 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. </span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">The unequal land-use patterns seen on reservations today is a direct outcome of discriminatory lending practices, land fractionation and specifically, <a href="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/2007/02/history-of-competency-as-tool-to.html">Federal policies</a> 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 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Act">General Allotment Act (GAA)</a> 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, <a href="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/2007/02/history-of-competency-as-tool-to.html">historical and racially-based policies by the Federal government</a> 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. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">The leasing of Indian Lands by the Federal Government dates back the the the <a href="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/2007/02/history-of-competency-as-tool-to.html">Act of February 28, 1891</a> 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). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">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. </span><b></b><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-39395861838033402010-10-14T18:57:00.001-06:002010-10-15T16:58:47.535-06:00The Fate of the Badlands South Unit and a Forgotten History<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;">By Jamie Way</span><br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The future of the land that now comprises the Southern Unit of Badlands National Park is once again uncertain. Today, the dispute over this land is somewhat more relaxed as the tension of war is no longer looming, but the stakes may be just as high as ever. In the fall of 2008, the National Park Service (NPS) began receiving public input on the creation of a new general management plan for the Badlands National Monument’s Southern Unit, (the Northern portion of the Pine Ridge Oglala Sioux reservation in South Dakota). The NPS is accepting public input on their proposed options until November 1st, whereupon the fate of this land will once more be determined by someone other than the Lakota. </span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Southern Unit has a long history, riddled with controversy and violence. Originally, this land belonged to the Lakota. In 1890, after the Lakota along with their Cheyenne and Arapahoe allies, were massacred by the 7th Cavalry in the battle of Wounded Knee, the survivors fled to what is now the Southern Unit. They took shelter in the natural fortress formed by a butte surrounded by cliffs. The area served as a refuge for those who escaped the cavalry. For this reason, and because Lakota Ghost Dancers were buried in this location, the land came to be considered sacred.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The land could not serve as a refuge forever. Throughout time, the reservation was created and the Oglala inhabited the Southern Unit. Unfortunately, however, right before World War II began, things changed drastically yet again for the inhabitants of the Southern Unit. On July 20, 1942 the War Department advised the Commissioner of Indian Affairs that they would be taking over an area of 40x15 miles across the northern portion of the reservation. While a small portion of this land lay within what was then Badlands National Monument (337 acres), the vast majority of the land was located within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation (nps.gov). The dispossession would impact some 125 Oglala families. And while the dispossessed families were to be supplied with some relocation compensation, assistance and supplies, actual accounts vary as to how much the families received if any at all. </span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The displacement was messy and created a major crisis on the reservation. While officially, the families would have had 40 days to leave if they were given notice on the same day as the Bureau of Indian affairs (which seems not to be the case most of the time), most believed that they needed to evacuate almost immediately. In fact, archival data reveals that Mr. McDowell, an employee of the land acquisition division of the War Department, had stated that the War Department was taking possession of the land and shooting was to start on August 1st (Roberts 7/7/42).This is even more shocking when you take into account that the Commissioner of Indian Affairs was only officially notified of the dispossession twelve days prior. Myrtle Gross, who was displaced during the event, reported that “the Farmer Office” sent a man to tell her to “[g]et out now because the Japs aren’t going to wait!” She said they were then given 30 days to leave, (Archives Search Report 1999, Interview 5). Similarly, Ida Bullman recalls finding out about the evacuation after reading a poster that was displayed at the local store. The store owner told her, “Pack up and leave. They’re going to start shooting at you.” Thus, by the time the information reached the population the impression was given that they were to have well under two weeks (approximately ten days) to evacuate their land. </span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Until 1958, the land was utilized for bombing and gunnery practice by what was then the Army Air Force. Even past this date, the South Dakota National Guard retained a small portion of the land for training purposes. When they left, the land's future was far from resolved. Moreover, they left behind them dangerous ordnance and never fully lived up to their responsibility of cleaning the land. To this day, unexploded ordnance can be found on the site. <br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Due to many families’ attachment to the land, Ellen Janis represented her neighbors’ interests and fought for reparations or the return of their land in a series of trips to D.C. to see public officials. During this time, Congressman Francis Case, who had lobbied for the bombing range, acknowledged that the evacuation had created an incredibly difficult situation for many of his constituents, admitting that “[t]he injustice that was done to the people of Pine Ridge is almost beyond comprehension” (Francis Case as represented in Nichols 1960). In 1968, Public Law 90-468 was finally passed, and lands declared excess by the Air Force were to be transferred to the Department of Interior. The law afforded those displaced (whether their land was held in trust or in fee) the possibility of repurchasing the land that had been taken from them if they filed an application with the Secretary of Interior to purchase the tract. This application needed to be filed within a one year window from the date a notice was published in the Federal Register that the tract had been transferred to the jurisdiction of the Secretary. Needless to say, the displaced were not properly notified of this option in many cases, in part due to their geographical dispersion. The law also stated that the original inhabitants that wished to repurchase their land were to pay the price the U.S. government had paid for the land, plus interest. Thus, those that decided to repurchase their land explained that they paid much higher prices for the land than they had originally been paid for it when the government confiscated it. <br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">According to Jim Igoe's BRIDGE report, “By the end of the early 1960s it was clear that Department of the Interior bureaucrats intended that the area should be taken over by a Department of the Interior Agency, and not returned to the Tribe.” The Park Service promised the tribe that by creating the park, they would invigorate the reservation economy through tourism, while the a Senate committee simultaneously strong-armed the tribe threatening to “dispose of the land in question under surplus property agreements if the Tribe refused to lease land,” (Igoe 2004). <br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The topic was controversial on the reservation, as traditionalists refused to turn over the land. In 1976, the Tribal Council under Chairman Dick Wilson, whose questionable leadership during the AIM struggle on Pine Ridge has solidified his legacy as a harsh and corrupt leader, signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the National Park Service. The Stronghold District of the Badlands National Park, which includes 133,300 acres of land, from this point on has been held by the National Park Service in conjunction with the Oglala Sioux Tribe. <br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Over the next 25 years, the relationship between the NPS and some tribal members remained strained. In 2002, relations between the NPS and some tribal members degenerated to the point where a grassroots movement of Lakota defending the burial place of Ghost Dancers, called the Keepers of the Stronghold Dream, felt it necessary to physically occupy the land, guarding it from the invasion of hikers, park visitors and fossil poachers in an attempt to reclaim it (Igoe 2002). Unfortunately, this confrontation settled nothing and the issue remains unresolved to this day.<br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Currently, the NPS and the tribe both have complaints about how the area is being managed. The NPS complains that they have not been given proper access to manage the site as needed. The tribe feels as though the NPS has not lived up to its promises in the 1976 MOA including filling NPS jobs at the site with tribal members and reintroducing buffalo into the area. Moreover, they are still concerned with fossil poaching and environmental destruction of the region by outsiders. For this reason, many would like to see the land pulled out of the park system entirely. <br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">As is evident in this history, the land was never properly returned to its original owners. While none of the NPS options include returning land to those that were displaced prior to WWII nor giving the land back to the tribe with no obligations, the options do include giving the tribe more control over this portion of their land. Option 2, considered the “preferred option” by the NPS, would have the NPS and the tribe create a “National Tribal Park.” Option 7 would give even greater control (but may create financial issues or have other drawbacks) to the tribe. It would allow the tribe to create and operate an Oglala Sioux Tribal Park. The NPS claims that both Option 2 and Option 7 would require Congressional approval. The reasoning behind this, however, remains unclear. In the original 1976 MOA (which has since been modified), section 21 states that “Any part or parts of this Agreement, including any appendix, may be amended or modified by mutual written consent (between the NPS and tribe) at any time.”<br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The NPS is currently in the final phase of public meetings and accepting comments. The comment period for this topic will close on November 1, 2010. Please consider this history while attending meetings on this topic or giving your feedback. You can read more about the options at: <a href="http://parkplanning.nps.gov/document.cfm?parkID=117&projectID=17543&documentID=35882">http://parkplanning.nps.gov/document.cfm?parkID=117&projectID=17543&documentID=35882</a> and comment at: <a href="http://parkplanning.nps.gov/commentForm.cfm?parkID=117&projectID=17543&documentID=35882">http://parkplanning.nps.gov/commentForm.cfm?parkID=117&projectID=17543&documentID=35882</a></span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-59148062994149295432010-09-14T12:21:00.003-06:002010-09-14T12:22:57.770-06:00Support this Appeal for the Creation of the First Ever Tribal Park in the United States!<div class="mbl notesBlogText clearfix"><div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b>The message below was sent to Village Earth by Oglala Lakota Tribal Member, Doris Respect Nothing. </b></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">"Dear my friends and family,<br />
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The Badlands National Park has developed a 20-year general management plan (GNP) for the South Unit. Within the GNP, there are seven alternative plans currently proposed. The comment period is now open until October 19th to the public. It is important for the public to review the alternatives and pick one which will help the Lakota people with the current status.</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
The South Unit is located in our reservation and has been a part of Oglala Lakota history.<b> </b>However, This area was leased to the war department during the WWII for the bombing practice. After the land was turned over to the National Park Service after the war in 1968. Since then, the National Park Service has given permits for the fossil excavation without a proper consultation with the tribal government.</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
In my opinion, the best alternative is <b>Option 7: Oglala Sioux Tribal Park. </b>This option allows us to protect our cultural and natural resources and restore our relationship with the buffalo nation on our own. With this option, it will guarantee protection of the South Unit from becoming the public lands (Option 1 to 5) as well as possible uranium mining and other threats of development by the tribe (Option 6: deauthorization).<br />
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Please help us establish our own tribal park by making a comment today. If you agree with the Option 7, you could use the sample comment below. Simply copy and paste tin the comment page.<br />
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Thank you so much for your support on this matter. Please spread the word by forwarding this email to your friends and family.</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Sincerely,</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Doris</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b>Sample comment here: you can copy and paste this sentence to the comment page at </b><a href="http://parkplanning.nps.gov/commentForm.cfm?documentID=35882" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://parkplanning.nps.gov/commentForm.cfm?documentID=35882</a><b>. Feel free to personalize the comment if you would like.</b></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Dear Badlands National Park,</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I would like to support Option 7: Oglala Sioux Tribal Park from the proposed alternatives of the park general management plan. This option allows Oglala Lakota nation to protect their cultural and natural resources and restore their relationship with the buffalo nation. With this option, it will guarantee protection of the South Unit from becoming public lands, which help the nation to fully regain their access to the South Unit. This option also prevents the possible uranium mining and other threats of development in the South Unit. I like to support Lakota nation's sovereign right to manage the South Unit as a tribal park. This will create many opportunities for the Oglala Lakota people within park management, business and all other aspects of a tribal park. It is important to create a hope for the Oglala Lakota people, especially for the youth who deserve to regain their own identity as Oglala Lakota. Option 7 will serve the best to these purposes, in my opinion.</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Thank you.</div></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-18547980653841197362010-08-18T10:13:00.001-06:002010-08-18T10:21:02.759-06:00The Tipi House Project<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The Tipi House Project is an alternative housing project in the Wounded Knee District on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Developed by Chris Cuny, lifetime resident of the Pine Ridge Reservation, the Tipi House Project is intended to be a low-cost alternative housing option for residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation or for anyone in the world looking for an alternative to square, stick-built housing. Currently, the Pine Ridge Reservation is experiencing a shortage of several thousand houses and Village Earth seeks to support local solutions to solving this dilemma. The Tipi House is one such effort! </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">If you would like to support this project, please contact Chris Cuny, P.O. Box 268, Manderson, SD. 57756. Ph. 605-441-3876. Email. commonman87@hotmail.com. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_cuDGfLcom28/TGwGLaRLbyI/AAAAAAAAA_k/kGPNSZIR09w/s1600/chris+cuny2_Page_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_cuDGfLcom28/TGwGLaRLbyI/AAAAAAAAA_k/kGPNSZIR09w/s400/chris+cuny2_Page_1.jpg" width="306" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_cuDGfLcom28/TGwGKWBxbpI/AAAAAAAAA_g/pxCxYj1w_GI/s1600/chris+cuny2_Page_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_cuDGfLcom28/TGwGKWBxbpI/AAAAAAAAA_g/pxCxYj1w_GI/s400/chris+cuny2_Page_2.jpg" width="307" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cuDGfLcom28/TGwGHgJwDpI/AAAAAAAAA_c/ig4Ien4Z3-Y/s1600/chris+cuny2_Page_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cuDGfLcom28/TGwGHgJwDpI/AAAAAAAAA_c/ig4Ien4Z3-Y/s400/chris+cuny2_Page_3.jpg" width="307" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-3377357472622201402010-07-26T12:50:00.000-06:002010-07-26T12:50:18.619-06:00Senate holds up Cobell Settlement Once Again!Senate will approve 700 Billion to Wall Street in a matter of weeks but when it comes to settling-up with Native Americans for less than 7% of the money owed to them for oil, gas, timber and grazing leases, try 14 years.<br />
<br />
READ BELOW <br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Statement by Elouise Cobell<br />
Lead Plaintiff<br />
Cobell vs Salazar<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"> BROWNING, Mont., July 23 -- On July 1, 2010, the House of Representatives passed HR4899 – Disaster/War Supplemental Appropriations. It included legislation to approve the <i>Cobell v. Salazar </i>individual Indian trust settlement. <span> </span>Late last night, however, the Senate stripped from HR 4899 all domestic spending provisions, including our settlement legislation, notwithstanding that the domestic spending provisions are fully paid for.<span> </span>The stripped version of the bill returns to the House for further consideration. <span> </span>This is the second time in two months that the Senate has failed to act on settlement legislation although it is fully paid-for and had been expected to pass if put to a vote. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As a result of Senate action, legislative approval of our settlement, once again, is in the capable hands of House leadership, which steadfastly has supported us since settlement with the government was reached on December 7, 2009.<span> </span>We have great confidence in Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer and believe that they will continue to ensure that 500,000 individual Indians finally are provided justice that is long overdue.<span> </span>We are depending on them. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-39244611662751068742010-07-16T18:38:00.000-06:002010-07-16T18:38:10.248-06:00JULY 2010 PINE RIDGE UPDATE<span id="internal-source-marker_0.18532073090723422" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s hard to believe that it has been nearly 7 years since the start of the Lakota Lands Recovery Project (LLRP). Regular reflection is a cental component to Village Earth’s praxis approach to community empowerment. In the spirit of Paulo Freire, the term praxis refers to an ongoing cycle of analysis, action, and reflection that has the power to reveal the root causes of oppression as well as the path out. The LLRP itself was launched after nearly two years of facilitating meetings across the reservation where we asked community groups about their vision for the future. By in large, this vision was about getting out of the overcrowded and deteriorating government housing projects and back onto their lands. Guided by this vision, the LLRP was formed, serving as a grassroots support organization to grassroots initiatives to recover, protect and utilize their lands on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Allied in praxis with people across the reservation we’ve learned many things about the tangled web of history, policy, bureaucracy, and trauma that Residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation and reservations across this country face on a day to day basis. This has evolved into three central pillars of our strategy; 1. Supporting Lakota’s who are already utilizing their lands, 2. Providing education and outreach on land-recovery, land-use, and 3. Advocating for the rights of Native Americans across the nation to utilize their own lands. Below I’ll try to briefly update you on the ways we are supporting each pillar. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The focus of our efforts for the first pillar has been in supporting the development of the Lakota Buffalo Caretakers Cooperative (LBCC), a cooperative we helped establish in 2008 to market and distribute grassfed and field harvested buffalo meat raised by Lakota families on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Shortly after it’s incorporation in the State of South Dakota, we helped to form a regional distributor for Northern Colorado Allied Natural Meats (ANM), Ltd. For the past two years, ANM has been buying buffalo raised by the LBCC and distributing throughout Northern Colorado which is helping to generate income for these small producers on the Reservation to cover their expenses and grow their herds. It can also be purchased online at www.lakotabuffalocaretakers.org. We’ve continued our yearly donations of Buffalo in partnership with the Danylchuck Buffalo Ranch in Rye, Colorado. We’ve also been working with a private donor and the Oglala Sioux Tribe Elderly Assistance Program to distribute buffalo meat raised by the LBCC to elders across the reservation. We are happy to announce the re-organization and re-birth of the Lone Buffalo Project. It is now in the control of Henry Red Cloud and his Tiwahe. We are excited that this reorganization will breathe new life and energy into this project. Also, we are looking forward to assisting Virgil Bush to start up a new buffalo ranch on the reservation this fall. Virgil has been a long-time supporter of Buffalo reintroduction on Pine Ridge and after our recent fundraising tour in Germany and Switzerland, we are looking forward to helping him establish a herd of his own. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For the second pillar of our approach, we have recently completed a project in partnership with the Indian Land Tenure Foundation (ILTF) to simplify the maze of bureaucracy, forms, and applications necessary for Native land-recovery and use across Indian country. This work will be appearing in a forthcoming edition of the “Message Runner,” the ILTF’s newsletter. We also continue our work answering questions and distributing information to Lakota’s interested in consolidating and utilizing their lands. In fact, we have run out of copies of our highly popular strategic land planning manual/atlas. We are currently looking for funding to update and print more copies. This fall, we are also planning on developing an online course in Native Strategic Land Planning to be offered to make this information available to Indian allottees across the country. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lastly, for the third pillar, we continue to weigh in on the debate regarding Native American land-use, in particular putting pressure on the government to honor their trust responsibility by processing appraisals and land exchange applications in a timely manner, a process that now takes nearly 4 years! We are happy to announce that because of our research, the Head of the BIA acknowledged that the land application “system is broken” at a major conference on Native American Agriculture. We plan to continue raising awareness of the general public and putting pressure on policy makers to lower the barriers for Native Americans to live on and utilize their own lands!</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-70199497244662682352009-12-17T11:32:00.000-07:002009-12-17T11:32:59.662-07:00Reflections on the Cobell Settlement and Indian Land Consolidation<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">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.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">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.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-57274647997144392162009-12-08T12:19:00.001-07:002009-12-08T12:26:19.987-07:00Settlement Agreement Reached in Cobell v. SalazarTaken from: <a href="http://www.cobellsettlement.com/index.php">http://www.cobellsettlement.com/</a><br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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What will IIM Account Holders and other Class Members get?<br />
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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:<br />
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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.<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-44274451097999594962009-11-04T22:00:00.005-07:002009-12-14T22:25:03.068-07:00USDA Misrepresents Situation of Native American Farmers<b><b id="sm">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.</b></b> <br />
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For Immediate Release <br />
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Village Earth - Nov. 4, 2009 - Today, the USDA issued a <a href="http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/%21ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB/.cmd/ad/.ar/sa.retrievecontent/.c/6_2_1UH/.ce/7_2_5JM/.p/5_2_4TQ/.d/1/_th/J_2_9D/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?PC_7_2_5JM_contentid=2009%2F11%2F0552.xml&PC_7_2_5JM_parentnav=LATEST_RELEASES&PC_7_2_5JM_navid=NEWS_RELEASE#7_2_5JM">press release</a> 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 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/11/04/04greenwire-obama-to-attend-summit-with-american-indian-tr-77503.html">meeting </a>between the White House and Tribal representatives from across the country. <br />
<blockquote>"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." <br />
</blockquote>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 <a href="http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2007/Online_Highlights/Fact_Sheets/american_indian.pdf">USDA report</a> that explained the dramatic increase in the numbers. <br />
<blockquote>"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."<br />
</blockquote>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.<br />
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As <a href="http://www.prlog.org/10386768-usda-census-reveals-nonnative-producers-dominate-on-most-native-american-reservations.html"><span id="goog_1257397229892"></span>reported </a><span id="goog_1257397229893"></span>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, <a href="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/2007/02/history-of-competency-as-tool-to.html">historical and racially-based policies by the Federal government</a> 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.<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-48296477270849203102009-10-23T12:50:00.005-06:002009-12-14T22:26:52.109-07:00USDA Census Reveals Non-Native Producers Dominate on Most Native American Reservations<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">By David Bartecchi and Courtney Hunter </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">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. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/uploaded_images/TotalValueAgriculture-731376.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/uploaded_images/TotalValueAgriculture-730157.jpg" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">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. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The unequal land-use patterns seen on reservations today is a direct outcome of discriminatory lending practices, land fractionation and specifically, <a href="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/2007/02/history-of-competency-as-tool-to.html">Federal policies</a> 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 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Act">General Allotment Act (GAA)</a> 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, <a href="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/2007/02/history-of-competency-as-tool-to.html">historical and racially-based policies by the Federal government</a> 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. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The leasing of Indian Lands by the Federal Government dates back the the the <a href="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/2007/02/history-of-competency-as-tool-to.html">Act of February 28, 1891</a> 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). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">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. <br />
</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-61821749858081789892009-09-22T21:18:00.000-06:002009-09-22T21:18:04.208-06:00LAKOTA BUFFALO CARETAKERS COOPERATIVE TO CELEBRATE DONATION & REFLECT ON PROGRESS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3271/2898426777_8112f93d1f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="315" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3271/2898426777_8112f93d1f.jpg" width="420" /></a><br />
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On Friday, September 25, members of the <a href="http://www.lakotabuffalocaretakers.org/">Lakota Buffalo Caretakers Cooperative</a> (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. <br />
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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. <br />
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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 <a href="http://www.villageearth.org/">Village Earth</a>’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. <br />
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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.<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-31469749011912105982009-08-31T11:42:00.033-06:002009-09-24T12:15:21.020-06:00High Country News Features Village Earth's Work on Pine Ridge<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/uploaded_images/HCN_Cover-701171.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="420" src="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/uploaded_images/HCN_Cover-701168.jpg" width="350" /></a><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Read about Village Earth's work on the Pine Ridge Reservation in Aug 31, 2009 edition <a href="http://www.hcn.org/issues/41.15/a-new-land-grab">High Country News</a>, 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, <i>High Country News’</i> 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.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/uploaded_images/HCN_THUMBinside-761059.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/uploaded_images/HCN_THUMBinside-761056.jpg" width="420" /></a><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">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. <br />
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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.) <br />
</blockquote><blockquote>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. <br />
</blockquote><blockquote>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.<br />
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To read the entire article go to <a href="http://www.hcn.org/issues/41.15/a-new-land-grab">http://www.hcn.org/issues/41.15/a-new-land-grab</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-71338503079832492762009-07-24T12:05:00.000-06:002009-07-24T12:06:39.649-06:00Indian Trust Lead Plaintiff Expresses Disappointment on the Appeals Court RulingFrom: www.indiantrust.com<p>WASHINGTON, JULY 24 -- Today’s ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in the Indian Trust class action lawsuit will prolong what the court has said repeatedly has lasted too long.<span> </span>The case is now in its 14<sup>th</sup> year.<span> </span></p> <p>Elouise Cobell, lead plaintiff for the class of 500,000 individual Indians, expressed disappointment in the ruling, commenting that “it is difficult to understand why the court is reluctant to enforce binding trust law and controlling Supreme Court precedent and ignore the government’s mismanagement of the Individual Indian Trust.” </p> <p>For hundreds of thousands of Indians, including children, the elderly, and the infirm who depend upon their trust funds for food, clothing, shelter, and health care, this ruling means that many more years will pass before they can hope to secure trust funds that the government has withheld unconscionably and in breach of trust duties that it has owed for generations. </p> <p>The appellate court reversed the trial court’s $455.6 million award in restitution, stating that the district court may not relieve the government of an accounting duty as a matter of law.<span> </span>However, at the same time, the court cast aside settled law, reversed its earlier decisions, and decided that the government need only account for funds that it can identify easily, those that the court described as “low hanging fruit.” Moreover, the court has accepted as good enough for government work its systemic trust records destruction and suggested that it would be unfair to force the government to perform and accurate and complete accounting because its historical breaches of trust now make that accounting too expensive to render.</p> <p>The Cobell plaintiffs will continue to seek justice in this case, no matter how long that will take.<span> </span>Accordingly, further appellate review will proceed in addition to a request for the district court to place the IIM Trust into receivership to ensure that the beneficiaries their assets finally receive the protection they are owed under the law.</p> <p>For additional information:</p> <p>Bill McAllister</p> <p>703-385-3996</p> <p>202-257-5385 (cell)</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-2231035525908331602009-07-21T17:13:00.002-06:002009-07-22T18:22:27.619-06:00Lakota Buffalo Caretakers: A New Paradigm of Agriculture?It is not difficult to argue the case that modern agriculture has reached a crisis stage. We have reached a point where must accept that change must occur, where common-place practices must abandoned, where long established institutions collapse, and ultimately, a new paradigm emerges. It could also be argued that the crisis we are experiencing in modern agriculture is part of a larger crisis evidenced by global warming, the burgeoning divisions between rich and poor, and most recently, the collapse of global capital markets. This can be a disquieting time indeed since, while its clear that change must occur, nobody is quite sure what that change will look like. Speaking about the broader global transition taking place, Colombian born Anthropologist, Arturo Escobar has argued that “Epistemologically this move entails a transition from the dominance of modern science to a plural landscape of knowledge forms. Socially, the transition is between global capitalism and emergent forms of which we only have glimpses in today’s social movements.” Rather, he argues that the emerging social movements, like the growing indigenous rights movement, represents the best hope for reworking many of the problems faced by global capitalism.<br /><br />In a small way, with our work on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, we are seeing how this “reworking” can manifest. In particular, some of the challenges we have faced in developing a market and supply chain for meat from buffalo raised by a cooperative of Lakota Producers. While, Village Earth has been working to support Lakota buffalo caretakers on Pine Ridge since early 2003, it wasn't until 2006 when they started talking about forming a cooperative. Over the next few years we had numerous meetings, did our homework, drafted bylaws and articles of incorporation, and by August of 2008 the coop was officially recognized in the State of South Dakota. Less than four months later, the cooperative filled the first order under its label “Lakota Buffalo Caretakers Cooperative (LBCC).” To facilitate distribution in northern Colorado (where the best market exists) we helped establish a independently managed L.L.C. Called “Allied Natural Meats.” While it has been less than a year where the coop has been selling its products on the market, we have already learned a great deal where the points of conflict exist between the old paradigm of raising and selling meat, and possibly a new paradigm emerging from the LBCC but informed at a deeper level by the Lakota worldview.<br /><br />In the dominant paradigm, most livestock, spend only the first six months of their lives in open pastures. After that time they are moved to feedlots where they often have less than 13 square-feet of space per animal, fed a mixture of high-fat grain and ground-up poultry waste until the age of 14 months where they are trucked-off to slaughter houses for processing. While we all may be familiar with this process for cattle, these same practices are bleeding into the buffalo industry, as evidenced by the buffalo feedlot that is being built soon Weld county Colorado, just a few miles from Village Earth's offices. In fact, most buffalo sold in stores (even health food stores), often spend the last 90 days in a feedlot and then trucked to a slaughter facility, even when they say “grass fed” on the label.<br /><br />In the Lakota worldview, Buffalo are sacred, and killing one is comparable to killing a human. In fact, one elder explained this to me once by pointing to group of people talking around a fire and asked, “what do you think would happen to the social order of that group over there if we killed three of them?” It is this worldview that makes the notion of sending one to a feedlot an abomination. The Lakota alternative to this is raising buffalo their entire lives on open pastures and respectfully ending their lives in the field. In fact, some families have made this into a sort of right of passage for young men on the reservation, preparing them in ceremony to take the life of the buffalo in a respectful manner. It is said that when this honored, that the animals, within that particular family, are much calmer during the harvest. However, with current USDA regulation, this is a costly way of harvesting animals since it requires the use of a mobile-processing truck to drive out to the pasture so the animals can be gutted and cleaned within 45 minutes of the kill. Yet, despite the fact that the families could be saving approximately $180 per animal by trucking live animals directly to a slaughter facility, and despite the fact that scheduling the truck is very unpredictable, considering it is not able to drive onto their pastures if they are wet or covered in snow, which just this spring caused a 6 week delay in harvesting, despite all this, they have chosen to do it this way.<br /><br />Another practice that many buffalo ranchers are adopting from the industrial cattle industry is manually weaning calves from their mothers just a few months after they're born. The advantage that these producers find from doing this is that the calves will start on grain more readily and fatten quicker. However, by doing this you break down the natural clan structure of the buffalo. Bison are herd animals but within each herd there may exist several smaller sub-clans or families. According to legend, the Lakota derived their social structure of the Tiwahe (family) and Tiyospaye (community) from the buffalo. Furthermore, traditional production methods drive producers to harvest their animals at approximately 30 months, the time needed for optimal weight gain. Weaning and always harvesting at the same age destroys the natural social structure of buffalo. According to Ed Iron Cloud from the Knife Chief Buffalo Nation (a member of the LBCC), “it's like having a bunch of adolescents running around, you NEED the older bulls to protect the herd and you need to elders to keep the social order.” A social principle mirrored in the Lakota culture.<br /><br />While these are just a few anecdotes, I think they illustrate some of the conflicts that exist between the old paradigm and possibly a new one emerging. One thing that I have really learned from these experiences is that the connecting tissue in this entire system is the consumer. As its name implies, Allied Natural Meats is committed to working with the LBCC to find ways around these conflicts – to “rework” things as Escobar would say. A large part of this has been educating retailers and consumers about why the meat costs more than typical buffalo meat or why things may be delayed a few weeks. This has allowed the LBCC to raise the buffalo in a way that is consistent with their worldview. If in some way this represents a small transference of worldviews that might contribute to the broader social transformation that Escobar has theorized is unclear. What is clear to me is that we can not rely solely on science and the market to solve the problems we face today. Many these problems were already worked-out centuries ago, the answers have just been suppressed, erroneously delegitimized and/or taken for granted. The best way for us to uncover these answers is to work as allies, and rework these lines of conflict.<br /><br />For more information about the LBCC visit their website at: <a href="http://www.lakotabuffalocaretakers.org/">http://www.lakotabuffalocaretakers.org/</a><br /><br />To learn more about Village Earth's work on the Pine Ridge Reservation visit: <a href="http://www.villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/index.php">http://www.villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/index.php</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-23414473473170220562009-05-11T16:15:00.001-06:002009-05-11T16:16:39.024-06:00INDIANS ASK APPEALS COURT FOR FOR JUSTICEFrom: <a href="http://www.indiantrust.com">www.indiantrust.com</a><br /> <br />WASHINGTON, May 11 -- A federal appeals court was told today that it should offer 500,000 Native Americans some form of "rough justice" as a result of the federal government's acknowledged mismanagement of their trust accounts.<br /> <br />Attorney Dennis M. Gingold, who represents the Indians in a 13-year-old class action lawsuit, said justice for the Native American trust account beneficiaries cannot be complete because so many records of what happened to their trust lands and funds are missing.<br /> <br />That means some form of "rough justice" is required, Gingold said, adding that any resolution of the case must be fair.<br /> <br />"If not, we'll all be here another 13 years," Gingold told a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.<br /> <br />Government lawyers said they want the case declared at an end and the Indians given nothing at all. Alisa Klein, an appellate lawyer with the Justice Department's Civil Division, argued that the Indians are due nothing.<br /> <br />Plaintiffs opposed an llth-hour effort by the Osage Tribe to intervene in the case and take control of its members' individual trust accounts. Plaintiffs have fully represented the interests of individual Osage tribal members from the outset of the litigation in 1996.<br /> <br />Individual Osage tribal members are clearly part of the lawsuit, because their trust accounts were always classified as the property of individuals and not the tribe, Gingold told the court.<br /> <br />After the hour-long hearing, Lead Plaintiff Elousie Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Nation from Browning, Mont., said that the government continued to mislead the appeals court about how the trust accounts have been managed. The accounts have never been audited, she noted, pointing out that the lower court had held an accounting remains "impossible." "I am very optimistic," she told reporters. "The court asked very good questions."<br /><br />As for the idea of "rough justice," she said: "We all understand what's going to happen." She said any sum that is finally approved by the court will be distributed after additional hearings and under court supervision.<br /><br />The three-judge panel gave no indication when it would rule.<br /><br />The Indian Trust was established by Congress in 1887. It included millions of acres of valuable lands in the West owned by individual Indians, whom lawmakers believed could not manage those lands. That job was given to the Interior Department, which has repeatedly acknowledged in the lawsuit that it mismanaged the trust accounts.<br /><br />For additional information:<br />Bill McAllister (media calls only)<br />703-385-6996<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-37046323811818384512009-01-12T12:38:00.002-07:002009-01-12T13:19:17.412-07:00Lakota Buffalo Caretakers Launch Retail Meat Sales<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.lakotabuffalocaretakers.org/"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 134px;" src="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/uploaded_images/smallbanner-778919.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />This weekend, the <a href="http://www.lakotabuffalocaretakers.org/">Lakota Buffalo Caretakers Cooperative</a> launched retail sales of packaged grass-fed buffalo meat raised on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The Lakota Buffalo Caretakers Cooperative (LBCC) is a 100% Native American owned and operated cooperative association on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Its membership is made up of small family buffalo caretakers who respect the buffalo and the land. <p class="style3">Buffalo raised by members:</p> <ul class="style20"><li><strong>Live on open ranges, never in feedlots</strong></li><li><strong>Eat wild grasses their entire lives </strong></li><li><strong>Are Free from antibiotics and hormones</strong></li><li><strong>Respectfully harvested in the fiel</strong><strong>d</strong></li></ul> <p class="style20">Members of the LBCC are committed 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. To the best of our knowledge, the LBCC is the only Native American run cooperative of small family buffalo caretakers in the United States. <br /></p><p class="style20"><a href="http://villageearth.org">Village Earth</a> helped to establish the LBCC starting in 2007. The LBCC was officially incorporated in South Dakota August of 2008. The LBCC has partnered with the Fort Collins based Allied Natural Meats, LLC. which will function as its fair-trade distribution partner. The LBCC currently has the capability to ship wholesale orders throughout the country. However, at this time, the LBCC and Allied Natural Meats, LLC are only set up to do online retail sales in the Fort Collins, Colorado area but hope to be selling national via mail order soon. For more information please visit the LBCC website at <a href="http://www.lakotabuffalocaretakers.org/">http://www.lakotabuffalocaretakers.org</a>.<br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-29116549514071556002008-12-18T15:57:00.003-07:002009-01-22T16:22:22.672-07:002009 Pine Ridge Study Tour<span style="font-weight: bold;">Village Earth and its community partners on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota are putting together a study tour June 20th-27th, 2009.</span><br /><br />If you are interested in participating please contact <a href="mailto://david@villageearth.org/">david@villageearth.org</a>.<br /><br />Schedule subject to change. Please keep visiting this post for updated information.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Below are some highlights of some of the things to expect.</span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><span arial="" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/86/241922910_6cf7e6ab87.jpg" alt="Bison on Pine Ridge" border="0" /></span></span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><span arial="" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Visit Village Earth's Community Partners and Their Projects Across the Reservation.</span></span><br /><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><span arial="" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/85/241917559_0515f3e1d7.jpg" border="0" /></span></span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><span arial="" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Lend a Hand In Community-Based Projects</span></span><br /><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><span arial="" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:78%;"><a href="http://www.sustainablenations.org/">Above Photo taken at the 2005 Sustainable Nations Training on Pine Ridge</a></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/79/241917173_8f34b8329a.jpg" alt="Community Projects" border="0" /></span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Become a Part of Land Recovery and Bison Restoration on Pine Ridge</span><br /><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/188/432712305_c3d3345f60.jpg" border="0" /></span><br /></div><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-22334386853784851742008-10-27T10:03:00.002-06:002008-10-27T10:19:36.986-06:00Mapping for Change on Pine Ridge<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/uploaded_images/Mapbookcover-718501.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 305px; height: 400px;" src="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/uploaded_images/Mapbookcover-718496.png" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Land issues on Native American Reservations are extremely complex and masked by layers and layers of bureaucracy. The old axiom, knowledge is power is the name of the game. But the game has changed with the advent of computerized mapping such as GIS (Geographic Information Systems) which has created a common platform for the exchange, creation, analysis, and presentation of geographic information. Where in the past, geographic information was stored deep in filing cabinets, hard to comprehend, and controlled by a few gatekeepers, GIS has allowed us to democratize this information, making it more accessible and more understandable. This approach is not new. Decolonization theorist Frantz Fanon recognized the importance of mapping in his classic 1961 work, “The Wretched of the Earth”, when he said “The colonial world is a world divided into compartments Yet, if we examine closely this system of compartments, we will at least be able to reveal the lines of force it implies. This approach to the colonial world, its ordering and its geographical layout will allow us to mark out the lines on which a decolonized society will be organized.” Edward Said mirrored these comments when he said: “the "slow and often bitterly disputed recovery of geographical territory which is at the heart of decolonization is preceded--as empire had been--by the charting of cultural territory."<br /><br />Village Earth's work with the Oglala Lakota on Pine Ridge is a good illustration in how mapping can be powerful tool for decolonization, but to understand how, requires a look back at the history of land issues for Native Americans in general and on Pine Ridge specifically. <br /><br />Between the period of 1492 to 1887 Native Americans were left with a territory that consisted of only 150 million acres of land. Furthermore, the practice of communally managed lands by some tribes was viewed by the Federal Government as a non-productive and irrational use of resources. To address these interests, in 1887 the U.S. Congress passed General Allotment Act (GAA) also known as the Dawes Severalty Act. The purpose of the act was to liquidate Indian land holdings by dividing the land up into 40 to160-acre allotments to heads of households. After all the allotments were issued remaining lands in the West, which totaled over 60,000,000 acres, was opened up to homesteaders. Along with the liquidating nearly 2/3rds of all “surplus” Indian lands, The GAA also created several contradictions for the use and inheritance of the remaining lands that would have deep implications for virtually all aspects of life for Native Americans. It broke apart communally managed lands into individually owned parcels destroyed the ability of many communities to be self sufficient on already limited and marginal lands.<br />It disrupted traditional residency patterns, forcing people to live on allotments sometimes far from their relatives, eroding traditional kinship practices across many reservations. <br /><br />Forced Fee Patenting, introduced with the 1906 Burke Act, amended the GAA to give the secretary of the interior the power to issue Indian Allottees determined to be “competent,” fee patents making their lands subject to taxation and sale. According to the Indian Land Tenure Foundation, nearly 27,000,000 acres of land was lost as a result. Although the practice of issuing forced fee patents and forced leasing ended in 1934 with the passing of the Wheeler-Howard Act, the effects are still felt today. In that many families are landless because an ancestor was issued a fee patent and lost their land through tax forfeit or bank foreclosure.<br />Indian Allottees determined to be “incompetent, ” under the Burke Act, were not allowed to live on or utilize their allotment, instead it was leased out by the Federal Government to oil, timber, mineral, and grazing interests. <br />Under the GAA the land alloted to Individual Indians is not really owned by them, rather it is held in Trust by the Federal Government. This means the land can be used by the Allottee but not sold. This situation has severely limited the ability of Indian landowners to develop assets on their lands including housing, business, and other infrastructure because they are not able to use it as a guarantee for loans.<br /><br />The GAA also established a system for how lands would be inherited from a landowner to his children. Since the practice of creating a Last Will and Testament before death was not common and in some cases was outright offensive to the traditional inheritance practices of some Native American cultures, these lands passed from one generation to the next without clear divisions of who owned what. After several generations lands have become so fractionated that you might have as many as several hundred landowners on one piece land. This has created a severe obstacle today for individuals and families wanting to utilize their lands as they need to get permission from at least 50% of the land owners on decisions related to the land.<br /> <br />With financial support from the Indian Land Tenure Foundation, Village Earth is developing Strategic Land Planning Map Books, a sort of “land recovery atlas” of the Pine Ridge Reservation, to provide the information necessary and clarify the steps for Native American Land owners to identify, consolidate, and utilize their lands. It contains easy to understand instructions and diagrams on how landowners can use the descriptions from their “interest reports” (a sort of Tribal land title created by the Federal Government) to locate maps of their lands, instructions and procedures for consolidating lands, removing lands from the Federal leasing program, partitioning lands, and creating wills. It also contains maps of the current leasing patterns as well as maps of the traditional communities that were broken apart by the Dawes Act and federal housing programs. In conjunction with a series of strategic land-planning workshops, one-to-one consultation, and training a corps of local land-planning consultants in each district, we hope to help reverse some of the damages created by 120 years of exploitative land policies on the Pine Ridge Reservation. For more information about this project contact David Bartecchi david@villageearth.org.<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-15741986111490150392008-09-29T10:04:00.004-06:002008-09-29T11:14:03.377-06:00More Buffalo Delivered to Pine Ridge<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/uploaded_images/loading-779619.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/uploaded_images/loading-779555.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>
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<br />This weekend, Village Earth delivered 7 more buffalo to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. These buffalo were donated by the Danylchuck Buffalo Ranch in Rye, Colorado . This is the 5th year that the Danylchuck's have donated buffalo to Lakota buffalo ranchers on Pine Ridge. We loaded the buffalo as soon as the sun rose Saturday morning and were quickly on the road, headed north to South Dakota. All the animals received the necessary vaccinations and certifications for interstate travel.
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<br />The Adopt-A-Buffalo program is part of Village Earth's larger initiative to support Lakota families to recover their lands from the BIA leasing program and utilize them on their own. Currently, over 60% of the Pine Ridge Reservation is being leased out, oftentimes to non-tribal members for a fraction of their value while Lakota families struggle to find regular employment. <meta equiv="CONTENT-TYPE" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><title></title><meta name="GENERATOR" content="OpenOffice.org 2.4 (Win32)"><style type="text/css"> <!-- @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } --> </style> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="">Naturally, this situation has had a dramatic impact on the overall economy on Pine Ridge. </span></span></span></span><meta equiv="CONTENT-TYPE" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><title></title><meta name="GENERATOR" content="OpenOffice.org 2.4 (Win32)"><style type="text/css"> <!-- @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } -- </style><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span lang="en-US">According to the USDA 2002 Census of Agriculture for American Indian Reservations of Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota, in 2002 there was nearly 33 million dollars in receipts from agricultural production on Pine Ridge, yet less than 1/3rd of that income went to members of the tribe. According to GIS data published by the BIA, 20 people control more than 46% of the land-base on Pine Ridge.
<br /></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Village Earth supports the broader land-reform movement across Indian Country which seeks to enhance the sovereignty of Native American's by strengthening their control over their natural resources.
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<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-17351035371975737562008-08-11T12:24:00.003-06:002008-08-13T15:46:58.056-06:00$455 Million, Adding Insult to InjuryFederal District judge Robertson recently ruled that the U.S. Government owes Native Americans $455 million dollars as "proper repair" for the estimated $47 billion that the Government never paid individual Indians for income generated from over 120 years of managing oil, gas, grazing, timber, and mining leases on their lands. This ruling came after nearly 16 years of litigation in the largest ever class action lawsuit against the federal government - representing some 500,000 individual Indians whose lands were being leased out by the federal government. On Tuesday Eloise Cobell, the lead plaintiff, appeared on <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/shows/2008/8/12">Democracy Now!</a> to announce her intent to appeal this decision. In the words of Mrs. Cobell:<br /><blockquote><br />"The opinion is both profoundly disappointing and difficult to understand. It disregards unchallenged evidence of record, law of the case, law of the DC Circuit since 1895, and settled law as set forth by the United States Supreme Court.<br /><br />Among other things, duties and responsibilities of the US government as Trustee for the Individual Indian Trust are the same as those that apply to private trustees, unless Congress expressly has enacted legislation to the contrary. No such legislation has been enacted.<br /><br />Accordingly, the unwillingness of the district court to apply trust law is puzzling. So is its unwillingness to hold the government accountable for its egregious breaches of trust. The district court now says that holding the government accountable would be unfair to the government. The complete lack of concern for fairness to victims of 120 years of abuse is utterly incomprehensible to Native People."</blockquote>Village Earth is working at "ground-zero" on this issue. While we support Cobell's efforts to seek justice from the Federal Government and force them to repair this horribly flawed system, we are working to help people reclaim and consolidate their lands from the Federal leasing system giving them an opportunity to bennefit directly from them on their own.<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-41093968818529015052008-07-29T09:36:00.005-06:002008-08-13T14:45:05.115-06:00Pepper Creek Gardening Project<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/uploaded_images/July-26,-2008-Download-004-751888.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/uploaded_images/July-26,-2008-Download-004-751062.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />(Above: Pete rakes cut grass on his land for feed for goats and other animals he's raising)<br /><br />In the heart of Pine Ridge's Wounded Knee District, a few miles up a dirt road west of Manderson lies Pepper Creek and the location of Pete Stand's growing farm project. According to Pete, he's just trying to make a better life for his kids and provide fresh vegetables to the local community. With a tractor recently purchased with a small grant from Village Earth, Pete is reclaiming old 1800's farm implements used by his grandfather during a time before the relocation programs of the post WWII era and the HUD cluster housing projects of the 60's and 70's when families across the reservation lived on their allotted lands and grew much of their own food. Along with working seasonally for area ranchers, Pete is carving out his own niche by growing vegetables, raising goats, horses, and chickens and with the help of area extension agent Sean Burke, Pete plans to expand into raising pigs and ducks.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/uploaded_images/July-26,-2008-Download-070-737285.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/uploaded_images/July-26,-2008-Download-070-736327.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />(Above: Pete adjusting the 1800's era rake his grandfather used to use)<br /><br />Pete is part of a growing movement of people on the Pine Ridge Reservation tired of living in the deteriorating housing projects with few options for work. A situation is compounded by the growing epidemic of diabetes on the reservation caused, in part, by the lack of access to fresh fruits and vegetables. It's a terrible irony that the poorest communities in America often pay the most for food and that highly processed foods tend to be the cheapest source of raw calories. This certainly holds true for the Pine Ridge Reservation but people like Pete Stands and others across the reservation are working to create a more equitable and localized food-web.<br /><br />Village Earth first learned about Pete's project from Calvin White Butterfly who is working to mobilize Tiyospayes (traditional sub-communities comprised of extended families) within the Wounded Knee District to utlize their lands to develop projects that enhance local self-reliance and cultural self-determination. We would like to thank <a href="http://www.honorearth.org/">Honor the Earth</a> and the support of our donors for making these projects possible.<br /><br />For more information contact: <a href="mailto:david@villageearth.org">david@villageearth.org</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-59184432210636844442008-07-16T09:44:00.002-06:002008-07-16T10:27:08.751-06:00Proposed Findings of Fact for 43 Billion Dollar Suit Against GovernmentOn July 11th, 2008 the Cobell plaintiff's posted on their <a href="http://www.indiantrust.com/">website</a> a proposed "Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law" (<a href="http://www.indiantrust.com/_pdfs/Conclusions1.pdf">download complete document here</a>) from their landmark 43 billion dollar class action lawsuit against the Department of Interior for mismanagement and theft of lease revenue from the lands of over 500,000 Native Americans.<br /><br />According to the document:<br /><br />"These findings and conclusions are the result of a nine-day bench trial in June 2008.1 Plaintiffs seek the equitable remedy of restitution and specific relief for Individual Indian Money (IIM) that was collected by the government as trustee and which the defendants are unable to establish was properly disbursed to a beneficiary, in addition to an amount representing the benefit to the government from retention of these funds. This trial was set for the purpose of determining the dollar amount of that remedy.<br /><br />Earlier this year, in findings issued January 30, 2008, this Court noted that one of the questions which was addressed in the bench trial held in the October 2007 trial was the dollar amount of the IIM trust “throughput,” i.e., the funds that have flowed into and out of the IIM trust. Cobell v. Kempthorne (“Cobell XX”), 532 F. Supp. 2d 37, 82 (D.D.C. 2008). However, the parties’ efforts to determine throughput in the October 2007 trial were found to be lacking and based on “sparse and largely unsupported evidence.” Cobell XX, 532 F. Supp. 2d at 82. Accordingly, the Pretrial Order for the present trial provided that while the January 30 findings would serve as a starting point, the parties were expected to adduce further evidence on this core issue. See Pretrial Order at 1.<br /><br />The findings and conclusions set forth herein, derived from this trial and the extensive record developed in this litigation, support and explain this Court’s decision that plaintiffs are entitled to restitution of $46,851,210,000.00, which represents the accumulated benefit conferred on defendants, net of amounts currently recorded on behalf of Individual Indian Trust beneficiaries. Jun. 2008 PX-189. Alternatively, plaintiffs are entitled to the funds withheld and interest pursuant to the government’s statutory duty to pay such interest (i.e., specific relief) in the amount of $62,018,970,000.00, which is net of amounts currently recorded on behalf of Individual Indian Trust beneficiaries. Jun. 2008 PX-192. These amounts should be ordered to be paid forthwith into the Registry of the Court."<br /><br />For more information visit: <a href="http://www.indiantrust.com">www.indiantrust.com</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-1880095855358312092008-07-07T22:43:00.005-06:002008-07-08T09:34:32.669-06:00New Book About America's Underground Food Movement Features VE's Projects on Pine Ridge<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/uploaded_images/KatzCover-790381.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/pineridgeblog/uploaded_images/KatzCover-790322.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Author Sandor Ellix Katz profiles "the cutting edge of food activism" in the United States in his latest book "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Will-Not-Microwaved-Underground/dp/1933392118">The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved</a>." From seed saving, land and labor struggles, and cultural survival to slow and raw food Katz highlights some of the grassroots efforts that are working to transform the current corporate driven, fossil fuel dependent, and inequitable food paradigm. One of the efforts described in his book is <a href="http://www.villageearth.org/pages/Projects/Pine_Ridge/index.php">Village Earth's Lakota Lands Recovery Project</a> on the Pine Ridge Reservation which is working with Lakota families to combine the restoration of grassfed bison herds with the recovery of Reservation lands to the control of individual indian allottees and their families. Alongside these efforts is the development a program to link sustainably/respectfully raised bison to the local and regional food web.<br /><br />We appreciate the recognition and recommend that anyone who is interested in learning more about the problems with America's food system, but more importantly, what's being done to change it, should purchase Katz's book.<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10603049.post-25566461955336935082008-06-25T11:07:00.000-06:002008-06-25T11:09:01.886-06:00JUDGE HOPES TO RULE BY MID-JULY IN INDIAN TRUST CASEReposted from: <a href="http://www.indiantrust.com">http://www.indiantrust.com</a><br /><br />WASHINGTON, JUNE 19 -- U.S. District Judge James Robertson said today he hopes to issue a ruling by mid-July on how much money Indian Trust beneficiaries failed to received as a result of the government's mismanagement of their money.<br /><br />The judge made his announcement shortly before noon after the government concluded its evidence at a eight-day trial on the issue.<br /><br />The trial will resume Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. when lawyers for the Indian plaintiffs present a final rebuttal witness in the proceeding.<br /> <br />Lawyers for both the Indians and the government then will present closing arguments.<br /> Judge Robertson said both sides will be asked to submit written briefs outlining recommendations for his ruling.<br /><br />The judge has stated previously that he hopes this proceeding will be the final trial in the 12-year-old class action lawsuit. It was filed in 1996 by Elouise Cobell, a Blackfeet Indian from Montana, over trust accounts that the federal government established for an estimated 500,000 Native Americans.<br /><br />Lawyers for the Indians have said that the government owes the Indians $58 billion as a result of its use of Indian money since the trust was established in 1887. The government is contesting those figures, arguing that the Indians lost no more than $158 million over the 121 years that the trust has been in operation.<br /><br />contact: Bill McAllister 703 385-6996<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.villageearth.org</div>Village Earthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00744525594372427513noreply@blogger.com0