Some people see ominous signs in the Obama administration decision to become the last country in the United Nations to support the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. They think the Declaration could relinquish some U.S. sovereignty and open a path for returning ancient tribal lands to American Indians, including even parts of Manhattan. [...]

Amazon Natives of the Achuar tribe together with Amazon Watch and EarthRights International have won a significant victory in their long battle to get oil companies to care for the Amazon rainforest and compensate Natives for pollution. The Achuar Tribe has about 4,500 citizens that live on subsistence level in central-northern Peru and rely on [...]

More than 1,000 Indigenous journalists and leaders came together in Columbia in November to devise a continent-wide strategy to protect and educate their communities and to develop a communications network for the entire hemisphere. The effort resulted in the Declaration of The First Continental Summit of Indigenous Communication of Abya Yala. “Abya Yala” means “Continent [...]

American Indian tribes across the country were awarded more than $100 million in federal stimulus funds as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The newly launched Tribal Economic Development Forum is one of the initiatives that came out of that funding. The Forum is an online group of tribes that will have the [...]

The Portland Oregonian editorial board called today for U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to approve the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation request to take land into trust for a casino in the Columbia River Gorge. The editorial notes that: “Time grows short for federal action on the Warm Springs tribes’ proposed [...]

Two days before Christmas the U.S. Department of the Interior handed the Cowlitz Tribe, located in southern Washington state, a big holiday present! Interior finally approved the tribe’s request to take 152 acres into trust status which would allow the tribe to open gaming operations. The Cowlitz were recognized as a federally recognized tribe in [...]

This is a sad post. There is/was only one organization in the U.S. (to my knowledge) that was devoted to electing American Indians to political offices, and it just announced it is closing. Kalyn Free, a citizen of the Choctaw Tribe of Oklahoma, has closed her INDN’s List. The group was dedicated to the recruitment, [...]

World Rivers Review reports that a proposed dam to be built in Canada has been shelved. Two private companies have dropped their plans to build a large hydro dam on the Slave River in Alberta, Canada after a local First Nations tribe refused to back the project. The efforts of the two companies to reach [...]

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Feb. 23 from the attorneys for Madison and Oneida counties and the Oneida Indian Nation on whether the counties can foreclose on nation land. The two questions the Court has agreed to hear are: • Does the tribe’s sovereign immunity prevent the counties from seizing the [...]

The Salt Lake Tribune claims today that the federal prosecutions in the Four Corners areas has driven down demand for American Indian artifacts The article states in part: “There is a reason people dig up artifacts in places such as southern Utah’s Ancestral Puebloan ruins, target of a 2009 crackdown on looting from public lands. [...]