Parks Stewardship Forum

At Bears Ears National Monument (BENM) Indigenous wisdom-keepers have been transmitting knowledge and activating this “living landscape” and the Native cultures thriving within it across hundreds of generations. In this article we ask, “What should true collaboration look like between Tribes, federal agencies, grassroots Native communities, and the land?” In today’s dialogue around collaboration, US agencies are asserting Western ideas around “co-management,” “co-stewardship,” and “Traditional Ecological Knowledge” (TEK). Instead, this dialogue needs to begin at the community level to understand Native land ethics, “human” and “non-human” bonds, and kinship relationships that define reciprocity between Indigenous People and the land. Collaboration must begin by treating Native wisdom as proprietary, because knowledge in itself is a powerful entity. How we treat and use Native wisdom has consequences and, thus, transmission of such knowledge needs protection. Agencies should take steps to support Native communities themselves in passing this knowledge along to younger generations. Every Tribe might be at a different stage of maintaining or restoring cultural relationships to the land and each ancestral landscape will have different ecological needs. Co-management of ancestral lands by Tribes is a worthwhile step toward achieving true collaboration with federal agencies. And as Native People return to the land, they will also be seeking the return of buffalo, beaver, native plants, and many extirpated species in order to restore their own cultures and relationships to the Earth. And much like these human relationships that must be formed as collaborations are established, these ties between Native spiritual leaders, ancestral lands, and wildlife must also be restored. Finally, the first step in any collaboration is building trust. All of this will take time and must be done one ancestral landscape, one Native community, and one agency office at a time. True collaboration by federal agencies will allow Native People to practice spiritual sustenance, strengthen their languages and cultures, and keep ancestral landscapes activated and healthy while respecting Tribal sovereignty and self-determination. It should also be acknowledged that the benefits for land and people of leading with Native epistemologies, and ways of knowing and doing, extends well beyond Native communities and land and are vital to the resolution of the current biodiversity and climate crises.