Elevating Tribal Interests and Rights
The Indigenous People of Greater Yellowstone are the original conservationists of the ecosystem.
Since time immemorial, they have used a deep and evolving repository of Traditional Ecological Knowledge to live in dynamic reciprocity with nature. Tribal communities continue to be spiritually and culturally connected to the plants, animals, water, and air of Greater Yellowstone.
For nearly two centuries, Tribes across America have endured federal policies of displacement, extermination, and assimilation, making it difficult for Indigenous People to preserve their cultures and their ways of life. Over the last century, Indigenous communities, including those with ancestral and current ties to Greater Yellowstone, have endured innumerable deceitful land and water deals and have been largely excluded from federal natural resource management decisions and conservation initiatives. The ecosystem itself has suffered as a result.
The Greater Yellowstone Coalition is committed to playing a part in ensuring that Tribes who have ancestral connections to Greater Yellowstone are reconnected with the management and conservation of the region’s public lands. We are partnering with Tribes to help reconnect Tribal members to their Indigenous homelands and working together to conserve and protect Greater Yellowstone’s remarkable natural resources. We do this by elevating Treaty Rights and Tribal Sovereignty, building better relationships between Tribal leaders and state and federal agency personnel, and creating forward-thinking solutions with Tribal members and their communities across the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
