Headlines around the world this week again brought attention to the impacts of dams in the Amazon on Indigenous peoples. This time the culprit is not a monstrous project but a smaller dam being built on the Aripuanã river in the state of Mato Grosso. The issue highlights the heightened tensions between indigenous people in [...]

There was an emotional scene at the White House when President Obama signed a new law targeting violence on American Indian reservations. The President stated: “It is unconscionable that crime rates in Indian Country are more than twice the national average and up to 20 times the national average on some reservations.” “When one in [...]

The news reports that little more than six years ago, Pawnee Eagle Corn was nearly extinct. The corn variety was down to only 25 kernels. But, this year, so far, 200 ears of Pawnee Eagle Corn has been harvested in central Nebraska and it is going to a Pawnee Indian Tribe. It’s like harvesting organic [...]

The news reports that a study of tribal casinos shows a checkered pattern of benefits and drawbacks for Indians who live on reservations. William Evans and Wooyoung Kim found that when casinos open, local wages and employment rates improve, but that drop-out rates increase and rates of college enrollment tend to decline. Evans, an economist [...]

Indian Country Today writes about the ancillary benefits of tribes and Indians working with other groups, that have interests other than regular Indian law issues. In this article, the paper shows how working with groups on diabetes prevention has led tribes may to see additional positive changes from the work done by tribal funding recipients. [...]

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is urging the state to formally license Cherokee language teachers, enabling Cherokee courses taught in public schools off the reservation to count toward a student’s foreign language requirement. Earlier this month, tribal and school officials met with representatives from the N.C. Department of Public Instruction to finalize the steps [...]

A Washington company is about to commence shipping garbage from Honolulu to a Washington landfill near the Columbia River. Hawaiian Waste Systems, a Seattle-based company will ship 150,000 tons of waste from Honolulu to the Roosevelt Regional Landfill. The process has apparently dragged on for years and sparked controversy across the Pacific. But the Yakama [...]

On Thursday, the U.S. Senate rejected the $3.4 billion government settlement with American Indians. The Senate passed an almost $60 billion war funding bill — but not before stripping out the $3.4 billion settlement that had been approved by the House. The Senate’s approval would have given the Obama administration the authority to settle a [...]

The editors of Indian Country Today wrote recently about self-determination. They wrote in part: “When the United States offered full citizenship to American Indians through termination policy in the 1950s, the government was asking tribal members to abandon collective tribal indigenous rights and powers. Under international pressures for better treatment of American Indians, the U.S. [...]

A federal appellate court in Washington, D.C., has ruled in favor of the Jicarilla Apache Nation located in northern New Mexico in a dispute over natural gas royalties dating from more than 20 years ago. The decision could mean millions of dollars for the tribe. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia [...]