Needed: Federal Conservation Program Designed for Tribes by Tribes

Tribal Nations have been stewards of the lands, waters and wildlife within what is now the United States since time immemorial. It's past time that the federal government supported their conservation efforts with a program built with Tribal conservation interests in mind. 

Since its inception, the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) has provided billions of dollars for conservation and recreation projects that have touched nearly every county in the country and has been one of the country’s most impactful conservation programs. Passage of the 2020 Great American Outdoors Act, which authorized $900 million annually in permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, was a historic victory that was decades in the making. 

But even our nation’s most successful conservation program is not without its limitations, particularly in serving the needs of Tribal Nations. 

A recent report entitled Tribal Access to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, commissioned by the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (NATHPO) and The Wilderness Society (TWS), found that over the past 50 years, LWCF funding to Tribal Nations has been woefully inadequate. Of the LWCF State and Local Assistance Program grants awarded over the past half century, only 0.2% of them went to Tribal Nations. That is significantly incongruent with the 2.3% of Tribally held lands in the United States and the 2% of the U.S. population living in Tribal areas. Not only did Tribal Nations receive fewer grants, but the grants they did receive averaged half the amount of other recipients.  

Now, this isn’t all that surprising. Like many other federal funding programs, the LWCF program was not designed with the needs of Tribal Nations in mind.  As a result, there are several financial and structural barriers to Tribal Nations when accessing this important conservation funding source. 

The woeful underrepresentation of Tribal Nations in the LWCF program comes at a time when our nation must collectively respond to critical 21st century environmental challenges. We must develop solutions to these challenges in partnership with Tribal Nations and in ways that honor Tribal Sovereignty, Tribal Self-Determination, and Indigenous Knowledge. This also means supporting Tribal Nations’ priorities in conserving their ancestral lands and their cultural and natural resources.  

To do that, we can look to the very real successes of the LWCF program and create an equally successful conservation program designed from the beginning to serve the needs of Tribal Nations. 

Based on the findings of the report, TWS and NATHPO make a series of recommendations about what is needed to meet this moment. Importantly, we believe that a successful program for Tribal Nations should be created and funded in addition to and separate from the LWCF program.  

However, building a new program to meet Tribal Nations’ needs will take an act of Congress and new funding, which will take time – potentially years. So, we must also work in the meantime to improve the ways we support Tribal Nations in accessing funding that exists currently and making it more amenable to their needs. 

Thankfully, there are several efforts underway both in Congress and led by the Biden administration that are making progress to address barriers that Tribal Nations face accessing federal conservation funding. 

Versions of the Outdoors for All Act, a bipartisan bill with robust co-sponsorship in both the House and Senate has been included in various outdoor recreation and access packages including the America’s Outdoor Recreation Act led by Sens. Manchin and Barrasso and the House EXPLORE Act led by Reps. Westerman and Grijalva.  The Outdoors for All Act would:

• add Tribes as directly eligible applicants to the LWCF-funded Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership Program  

• allow the federal government to waive the financial matching requirements, and  

• allow for increased administrative expenses under the program. 

Therefore, this bill could address, to some degree, three of the six major barriers identified in the Tribal Access to LWCF Report. 

The Biden administration is likewise making progress, announcing in July 2023 that they would be updating the LWCF State and Local Assistance Program manual to provide more explicit policies and practices aimed to better consult with and incorporate the needs of Tribal Nations.  

Outside of LWCF, the Biden administration has also made laudable progress through public-private partnerships in the America the Beautiful Challenge grant program, in partnership with Native Americans in Philanthropy. This program, which worked to address financial matching and application support needs, recently awarded $141.3 million in grants with a historic 40% of awards going to projects being implemented by Indigenous communities. 

However, there is much work still to be done. The need for Tribal Nations to exercise their Tribal-Sovereignty and Tribal Self-Determination in preserving and protecting important places and resources has never been more pressing. Key Tribal officials charged with this sacred duty are Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (THPOs), whose one dedicated source of federal funding (the Historic Preservation Fund) currently needs reauthorization. The current funding level for THPOs provides them with one staff member each, which has been contributing to delays in the Biden administration’s efforts to ramp up renewable energy development and roll out infrastructure and broadband improvements. The HPF needs to be reauthorized in a way that is more equitable to Tribes, enables them to perform their federally mandated duties, and upholds the federal trust responsibility. Specifically, an HPF reauthorization should set aside a minimum of 20% of the annual appropriations for THPOs and require the Department of the Interior to evaluate if the THPO funding levels are keeping pace with the growing number of THPOs. 

We are committed to working jointly with Tribal Nations, the Biden administration, conservation champions in Congress, and all our partners to continue building on the historic conservation success we’ve seen in recent years and the long-overdue commitment to uphold Tribal Sovereignty and ensure that Tribal Nations’ conservation visions are supported into the future. Doing so will benefit not just Tribal Nations but all who cherish our lands, water and wildlife. 

Chief Anne Richardson has served as Chief of the Rappahannock Tribe since 1998, the first woman Chief to lead a Tribe in Virginia since the 1700s. Most recently, she worked in partnership with several conservation organizations to purchase 465 acres of their historic town Wecuppom on the Rappahannock River protecting critical habitat for eagles and waterfowl in the Rappahannock River Valley Wildlife Refuge and along the Chesapeake Trail. 

Starlyn Miller is an enrolled member of the Little Shell Chippewa Tribe of Montana and a direct descendant of Menominee and Stockbridge-Munsee. She is Senior Director of Native Lands Partnerships for The Wilderness Society.  In this role she leads a team to develop policy priorities and positions that advance protection of cultural and sacred sites, co-management on public lands, and large landscape protection which center Native and Indigenous  peoples’ history, sovereignty, and interests. 

Dr. Valerie J. Grussing is the Executive Director of NATHPO. She is passionate about advocating for and supporting Native interests and voices in protecting and revitalizing Native culture. Valerie holds a BA in History from North Carolina State University, an MA in Anthropology from the University of Iowa, and a PhD in Coastal Resources Management from East Carolina University.