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Under Tribal Scrutiny, Cantwell Exiting SCIA; Tester to Take Charge

Rob Capriccioso, Indian Country Today, 1/30/14

After a tenuous year of leading the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) has confirmed that she is moving on.

Following weeks of speculation that she would step down to lead the Small Business Committee after a leadership shuffle among Senate Democrats following Sen. Max Baucus’ (D-Montana) retirement, Cantwell made her intentions clear at a January 29 hearing in Washington, saying it has been a pleasure to serve alongside vice-chair John Barrasso (R-Wyoming) and to work with current Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn.

“It has been a smooth working process,” Cantwell assessed of her work relationship with Barrasso. “We will certainly appreciate working with you again in the future.”

Reid Walker, a spokesman for the senator, said after the hearing that she will remain on SCIA as a member “and remains committed to Indian country.”

Cantwell, while praised as the first female chair of SCIA, has been criticized by some tribal leaders and advocates for not holding as many hearings and for not pushing for as much pro-tribal legislation as immediate past SCIA leaders by this point in their tenures.

Mary Pavel, Cantwell’s staff director and chief counsel, has held several listening sessions with tribal leaders and citizens, but these have not translated into firm action on many economic and social issues facing tribes today.

Pavel told Indian Country Today Media Network in an interview at the beginning of Cantwell’s term in 2013 that she expected the senator would be a strong leader of SCIA, which is not exactly the perception that many tribal leaders currently have of Cantwell’s one year in the position, although Ron Allen, chairman of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe in Cantwell’s home state of Washington, said she has done “a great job on behalf of Indian country” in his testimony before the committee on January 29. Tribal leaders from Cantwell’s region have generally been more pleased with her leadership than others.

In the weeks before the Small Business Committee chairmanship opened up, Cantwell had been working behind the scenes at tackling one of the major issues facing Indian country—a legislative fix to the controversial 2009 Supreme Court Carcieri decision that called into question the Department of the Interior’s ability to take lands into trust for tribes recognized by the federal government after 1934.

But Cantwell’s Carcieri legislation was mired in conflict before even getting out of the starting gate, since it was not drafted with wide consultation from tribal leaders. It called for a fix that would exclude the Narragansett Tribe of Rhode Island, and it made modifications to rules that would make gaming impossible or more difficult for some tribes. Many tribes and Indian organizations have argued that land-into-trust policy should not be tied to gaming policy, as they are distinct issues.

According to sources familiar with Cantwell’s effort on the Carcieri draft legislation, she worked with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on ideas involving historical connections tests for tribes that want to pursue off reservation gaming. Feinstein has long been controversial in Indian country for her desire to limit tribal gaming, especially in California. In a sign of their closeness, Cantwell sat next to Feinstein at the president’s January 28 State of the Union address, and they have introduced joint legislation in the past. Still, Feinstein’s office insists the senator did not play a role in drafting the legislation.

Tribal leaders who have seen the draft Carcieri legislation have generally let their displeasure with Cantwell’s work here be known, and the legislation is widely considered to be stalled with her moving on from the leadership.

Cantwell’s staff is well aware of the difficulties, but they say the senator has not given up. “Several ideas are being considered with input from multiple stakeholders, and more work needs to be done,” said Walker. “She and the committee remain committed to finding a solution.”

The Carcieri discussions and other issues within SCIA have been tense of late, and there were recent indications that the general tension of the atmosphere was affecting staffers there when Denise Desiderio, a deputy staff director at SCIA, decided to leave after five years with the committee. She has long told colleagues that she loved working there, so her decision was one indication of the difficulties surrounding Cantwell’s tenure, according to sources close to Desiderio.

A major highlight of Cantwell’s leadership was the passage of the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act in 2013 that included strong tribal jurisdictional provisions for prosecuting non-Indian offenders on reservations. The senator strongly supported that legislation, and she helped Indian advocates make their voices heard on the issue. She’s also been strong on forcing the federal government to pay contract support costs to tribes, and she has played a role in holding up Indian Health Service Director Yvette Roubideaux’ re-nomination to the position due to tribal concerns.

With Cantwell making her intentions to exit SCIA known, all eyes now turn to Sen. Jon Tester (D-Montana), who will take on the chairmanship, Senate sources have confirmed.

Tester, who has served on the committee since his first term in Congress that started in 2007, has been angling for the position with support from Senate colleagues, including the retiring Baucus. Other contenders were Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), but he is retiring from Congress at the end of this year, and Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Al Franken (D-Minn.) were also interested, according to Senate sources.

Tester, with the strong backing of the tribes in his home state, ended up with the gavel, and he is quickly signaling his intentions to be a proactive chairman. In mid-January, he introduced legislation that would amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to provide increased federal financial support to Native American language programs at American Indian-focused schools. And on January 30, he provided the congressional response to the annual State of the Indian Nations address hosted by the National Congress of American Indians. He’s also been meeting behind-the-scenes with many tribal leaders and advocates.

“I serve on the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs—we work hard, and the accomplishments are many, from the Native American protections in the Violence Against Women Act to the Indian Health Care Improvement Act to water settlements to my work with veterans to the Tribal Law and Order Act to NAHASDA,” Tester told ICTMN in a 2012 interview. “I am very proud of my record. I also visit every reservation in Montana every year.”

Photographing Native America – Matika Wilbur

by Monica Brown, Tulalip News Writer

Imagine using photography to change cultural stereo types of Native Americans in a society that currently glorifies the Native American as a tomahawk-wielding sports mascot, a feather clad underwear model, a provocative Halloween costume or a drunken advertising pun.

Matika Wilbur, a Tulalip and Swinomish native, developed Project 562 and is using her talent of photography to counteract these active and misconstrued perceptions.

“My project is dedicated to photographing every tribe in the U.S. to breakdown the historical inaccuracies and stereotypical ways that we are represented in mass media.”

Wilbur’s portraits depict the contemporary Native American in a generic setting; the portraits are in black and white with little distraction to put emphasis on the Native American as person within the evolving U.S. culture.

Wilbur, a former fashion photography major, as stated in Indian CountryToday, earned a bachelor’s degree in photography at Brooks Institute. Indian country stated that, “She had a change of heart after participating in a commercial shoot in Los Angeles. The resources expended to produce a single photo for a clothing ad — a rented house in Malibu, art director, hair and makeup person, publicist, three photographers, for a photo “I could have done for $5” — got her thinking: “This is what my life was going to be like. What kind of meaning did it have in the long run?””

“Can we relearn to see as human beings? Does the photographic image impact our lives and the lives of those around us and if it does can we use that image to encourage and inspire one another?” queries Wilbur in a recent TedX talk.

Currently in the fashion industry the Native American façade is being used in a sexual and/or irrelevant manner which debases the culture as it being attached to groups of people. There is a human disassociation that generates from these images; one that causes outsiders to view these people as objects rather than a culture.

“My hope is that when the project is complete, it will serve to educate the nation and shift the collective consciousness toward recognizing our own indigenous communities,” Matika quoted in her project blog at matikawilbu.com. The end result will be a compilation of portraits of the contemporary Native American instead of “the leathered and feathered vanishing race” stereo type of Native American.

For phase one of her project, Wilbur was able to raise $35,000 through Kickstarter to help fund her journey. This year’s goal, for phase two, that bar has been set higher at $54,000 to be raised by Feb 14^th 2014.

One of the many reward options for donating to Project 562 kickstarter

For information about Project 562 and to donate visit her kiskstarter.com page or Matikawilbur.com. Donators will receive rewards based on the amount they pledge. Rewards range from stickers and clothing labeled Project 562 to having the opportunity to spend time with photographer Matika Wilbur while she is on the road.

Currently, Wilbur is on the road in Arizona traveling by car to each reservation. In the past year she has photographed 173 tribes with just under 400 left. On May 17^th and 23^rd of this year a collection of Wilbur’s works will be on display at the Tacoma Art Museum and she has stated she will be in attendance to the art showing.

Wilbur has been taking photographs for over 10 years and some of her inspiration comes from photographers such as Phil Borges, Dorothea Lange and Coast Salish artists Shaun Peterson and Simon Charlie whose works she experienced through her mother’s La Conner art gallery.

Project 562 is estimated to be a 3 year project with a deadline set for the end of 2015. Upon conclusion, the compilation or portraits will be viewable across the U.S. Wilbur looks forward to being able to come home and work within her tribal community when her project is complete.

Northwest Starfish Experiments Give Scientists Clues To Mysterious Mass Die-offs

A dying Pisaster ochraceus sea star in the waters off West seattle dangles by its tentacles off an underwater piling that would normally be covered with a rainbow of sea stars. | credit: Laura James

By Katie Campbell, OPB

MUKILTEO, Wash. — Near the ferry docks on Puget Sound, a group of scientists and volunteer divers shimmy into suits and double-check their air tanks.

They move with the urgency of a group on a mission. And they are. They’re trying to solve a marine mystery.

“We need to collect sick ones as well as individuals that appear healthy,” Ben Miner tells the divers as they head into the water.

Miner is a biology professor at Western Washington University. He studies how environmental changes affect marine life. He’s conducting experiments in hopes of figuring out how and why starfish — or sea stars, as scientists prefer to call the echinoderms — are wasting away by the tens of thousands up and down North America’s Pacific shores.

Watch the video report:

Scientists first started noticing sick and dying sea stars last summer at a place called Starfish Point on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Then reports came from the Vancouver Aquarium in British Columbia, where diver biologists discovered sea stars in Vancouver Harbour and Howe Sound dying by the thousands.

It’s been coined “sea star wasting syndrome” because of how quickly the stars deteriorate. Reports have since surfaced from Alaska to as far south as San Diego, raising questions of whether this die-off is an indicator of a larger problem.

“It certainly suggests that those ecosystems are not healthy,” Miner said. “To have diseases that can affect that many species, that widespread is, I think is just scary.”

At first only a certain subtidal species, Pycnopodia helianthoides, also known as the sunflower star, seemed to be affected. Within a day or two of showing symptoms, the fat, multi-armed stars melted into piles of mush.

Then it hit another species, Pisaster ochraceus, or the common, intertidal ochre star. Then another. In all, about a dozen species of sea stars are dying along the West Coast. Sea star wasting has also been reported at sites off the coast of Rhode Island and North Carolina. But researchers say until they’ve identified the cause of the West Coast die-offs, they can’t confirm any connection between these outbreaks.

Scene From A Horror Film

Scuba diver Laura James was one of the first to notice and alert scientists when the morning sun star, Solaster dawsoni, and the striped sun star, Solaster stimpsoni, began washing up on the shores of Puget Sound near her home in West Seattle.

“I thought, ‘This is just getting a little too close for comfort, I need to go see what’s going on. And I need to document it,’” said James, an underwater videographer.

Laura James dives to film starfish die-offs in Seattle. Credit: Katie Campbell

She decided to take her camera to a popular West Seattle dive spot, a place she knew to be a home to a rainbow of starfish. Underwater James discovered a scene from a horror film.

“There were just bodies everywhere,” James said. “There were just splats. It looked like somebody had taken a laser gun and just zapped them and they just vaporized.”

She returned the site weekly, tracking the body count. At first, young stars seemed to be hanging on, a sign of hope that the next generation might be spared, but then even the smallest succumbed.

James has been diving in Puget Sound for more than two decades and says she’s never seen anything like it.

“People always ask me, ‘Do you see any big difference between now and when you started?’” she said. “I’ve seen some subtle differences, but this is the change of my lifetime.”

Reports from recreational divers like James have made it possible for scientists to track the ebb and flow of the syndrome. That’s what led Miner and his dive team to Mukilteo — a place where sea stars showing initial symptoms could be gathered.

“It turns out that you just need a lot of people out looking to be able to detect the spread,” Miner said.

Miner’s team surfaced, laden with 20 giant orange sunflower stars. They gathered stars that appeared healthy and others that had lesions and weren’t acting normal -— unnaturally twisting their arms into knots.

Miner trucked the stars to an aquarium-filled lab and placed one sickly star in with one healthy looking star. He also set up tanks containing only healthy-looking stars for comparison.

Then he watched to see what would happen.

Two sea stars share a tank, one healthy looking and one dying. Credit: Katie Campbell

Within a few hours, the sick stars started ripping themselves apart. The arms crawled in opposite directions tearing away from the body. While starfish have the ability to lose their arms as a form of defense, these starfish were too sick to regenerate their arms. Their innards spilled out and they died within 24 hours.

As for the healthy looking stars, Miner said they didn’t show symptoms anymore rapidly by being in the same tank with sickly stars.

A few weeks later divers returned to Mukilteo to find that most of the sea stars there have died. Miner concluded that all of the stars his team had collected were likely already infected just experiencing varying stages of illness. His team has since continued other infectiousness experiments collecting stars from other areas of Puget Sound where the disease hadn’t yet surfaced.

One such place was San Juan Island, part of an archipelago in the marine waters of Washington and British Columbia.

An Opportunity For Science

“We’re holding steady here and we’re not sure why,” said Drew Harvell, a marine epidemiologist from Cornell University who has studied marine diseases for 20 years. She teaches an infectious marine disease course at the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Labs on San Juan Island and was at the labs when the disease broke.

Harvell immediately recognized the die-offs as an important opportunity for science. Marine organisms are often plagued by disease outbreaks, she explained, but seldom are scientists able to identify the exact cause.

“We have a problem of surveillance for disease in the ocean because they’re out of sight and out of mind,” Harvell said.

For the past few months, Harvell has been coordinating a network of scientists on both coasts who received rapid response funding from the National Science Foundation to investigate the die-offs. The team has established a website and map run by Pete Raimondi from the University of California Santa Cruz. It’s one of the fastest-ever mobilizations of research around a marine epidemic.

“This is an opportunity for understanding more about the transmission and rates of disease in the ocean, so it’s important that we gather the right kinds of data,” Harvell said.

In her lab, Harvell anesthetizes a healthy sea star before cutting off one of its arms and slipping it into a sterile bag. She’s sending samples to Cornell where her colleague Ian Hewson, a microbial biologist, will compare them with samples of sick sea stars from along the West Coast.

Using cutting-edge DNA sequencing and metagenomics, Hewson is analyzing the samples for viruses as well as bacteria and other protozoa in order to pinpoint the infectious agent among countless possibilities.

“It’s like the matrix,” Hewson said. “We have to be very careful that we’re not identifying something that’s associated with the disease but not the cause.”

Ben Miner collects arms of dying starfish for lab analysis. Credit: Laura James

Ruling Out Possible Culprits

In the search for what’s causing this sea star die-off, it’s important for scientists to rule things out. Some have suggested that these die-offs could be linked to low oxygen levels in the water and environmental toxins entering the water through local runoff. Yet this seems unlikely, they say, because these conditions would normally impact a wider array of animals, not just sea stars.

Others have pointed out that marine die-offs in the past have been linked to larger environmental factors like climate change and ocean acidification. Warming waters and changing pH levels can weaken the immune systems of marine organisms including sea stars, making them more susceptible to infection.

Some have asked whether radiation or tsunami debris associated with the Fukushima disaster could be behind this die-off. But scientists now see Fukushima as an unlikely culprit because the die-offs are patchy, popping up in certain places like Seattle and Santa Barbara and not in others, such as coastal Oregon, where wasting has only been reported at one location.

Others have wondered if a pathogen from the other side of the world may have hitched a ride in the ballast water of ocean-going ships. Scientists say this fits with the fact that many of the hot spots have appeared along major shipping routes. However, the starfish in quiet Monterey Bay, Calif. have been hit hard, whereas San Francisco’s starfish are holding strong.

But at this point, there’s no evidence to entirely confirm or entirely rule out these hypotheses.

A Sea Without Stars

Sea stars are voracious predators, like lions on the seafloor. They gobble up mussels, clams, sea cucumbers, crab and even other starfish. That’s why they’re called a keystone species, meaning they have a disproportionate impact on an ecosystem, shaping the biodiversity of the seascape.

“These are ecologically important species,” Harvell said. “To remove them changes the entire dynamics of the marine ecosystem. When you lose this many sea stars it will certainly change the seascape underneath our waters.”

Because the die-offs are patchy, scientists aren’t concerned that sea stars will be wiped out entirely. But there’s no end in sight and the disease continues to spread.

“We may still be at the very early stages of this. We don’t really know,” Harvell said. “But it’s as important as ever right now, that we’re monitoring to know where the disease hasn’t been yet and when it first hits.”

New experiments in Washington state started this week to test possible infectious agents. The network of scientists collaborating on this project hope to make an announcement in a few months.

The Intricate Beadwork of Jackie Larson Bread [10 Pictures]

Dominique Godreche, Indian Country Today Media Network

Jackie Larson Bread is a beadworker from the Blackfeet Reservation in Browning, Montana, who currently lives in Great Falls. She won the Best in Show prize at the 2013 SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market for “Memory Keeper,” a beaded hatbox featuring members of her family and her tribe. Shortly after the win, she discussed her work with an ICTMN correspondent.

How did you come to be one of the Native art world’s most prominent beadworkers?

I have been beading all my life, since childhood. My grandmother, who passed away before I was born, beaded. So I have always been interested in how it was done, and taught myself the techniques by studying her items, and the beadwork done by the ladies of my tribe. Among the Blackfeet, everyone knows the basic techniques. When I was 14, I started to work at the Museum of Plains Indians, which I continued to do for ten summers, where I was amazed by the beadwork, so I learned even more techniques. Then I attended the Institute of American Indian Art, in Santa Fe, to study painting and printmaking. I wanted to figure out how to introduce beadwork, because I like the mix of traditional and contemporary imagery, using old photographs. First, I did Sitting Bull and Geronimo, then photos of our people — 90% of what I do is about the Blackfeet, telling what we look like, sharing our homes and designs. It takes so many hours that you have to be really passionate — it is time consuming! But I will always continue to do beadwork, even with the time factor, because I like it so much.

‘Memory Keeper’ beaded hatbox by Jackie Larson Bread, judged best in show at the 2013 Santa Fe Indian Market. Photo by Courtenay ‘Coco’ Sly.

Is there a specific Blackfeet aesthetic you need to follow, or are you free to choose whatever you like in terms of colors, designs, and subjects?

I used to confine myself to traditional ideas of beadwork, but now I do what I feel comfortable with — though I do not show any ceremonial things. I stay with what is right to tell. I share the lodges, the tipi designs.

Like the pictures of your family?

Yes, my dad’s aunts and uncles. I like to look through photos of our family members. Finding someone new is exciting — I would show the picture to my father, and he would explain how we are related to the person.

Beaded bag by Jackie Larson Bread. Image source: facebook.com/jackie.l.bread

Where do you usually show?

I show at Indian Market in Santa Fe, at the Cherokee Art Market in Tulsa, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in Tucson, and in Montana.

And now you’ve won Best in Show at Santa Fe Indian Market — probably the most prestigious award a contemporary Native artist can receive — after how many years?

I’ve showed for 15 years! I love coming to Santa Fe, and looking at what everybody does. It’s amazing. So to be recognized Best of Show is astounding, it’s the hugest honor. I am so happy I won, after 15 years.

‘Traveling Through Indian Country’ by Jackie Larson Bread is part of the National Museum of the American Indian’s collection. Image courtesy nmai.si.edu

Beaded bag by Jackie Larson Bread. Image source: facebook.com/jackie.l.bread

Moccasins featuring beadwork by Jackie Larson Bread. Image source: facebook.com/jackie.l.bread

Detail of beadwork portrait by Jackie Larson Bread. Image source: facebook.com/jackie.l.bread

Suitcase featuring beadwork by Jackie Larson Bread (front). Image source: facebook.com/jackie.l.bread

Suitcase featuring beadwork by Jackie Larson Bread (back). Image source: facebook.com/jackie.l.bread

Beaded lunchbox by Jackie Larson Bread. Image source: facebook.com/jackie.l.bread

Beaded portrait by Jackie Larson Bread. Image source: facebook.com/jackie.l.bread

City responds to AG’s opinion on marijuana businesses

The state Attorney General’s opinion would reserve the right of cities such as Marysville to determine their own ordinances regarding marijuana businesses.— image credit: Courtesy photo. — The state Attorney General’s opinion would reserve the right of cities such as Marysville to determine their own ordinances regarding marijuana businesses.
— image credit: Courtesy photo.

By Kirk Boxleitner, Marysville Globe

MARYSVILLE — A recently released opinion from the Washington State Attorney General’s Office ties into the city of Marysville’s pending decision on how to address the potential establishment of marijuana businesses within the city’s limits.

In response to a request from Sharon Foster, chair of the Washington State Liquor Control Board, the office of Attorney General Bob Ferguson released a formal opinion on Thursday, Jan. 16, regarding local ordinances affecting new marijuana businesses in Washington.

The opinion states, “Under Washington law, there is a strong presumption against finding that state law preempts local ordinances. Although Initiative 502 establishes a licensing and regulatory system for marijuana producers, processors and retailers in Washington state, it includes no clear indication that it was intended to preempt local authority to regulate such businesses. We therefore conclude that I-502 left in place the normal powers of local governments to regulate within their jurisdictions.”

Grant Weed, who serves as the city attorney for the city of Marysville, sounded a qualified note of optimism, even as he sought to clarify what this development actually means for the city.

“The Attorney General’s opinion is just that — an opinion,” Weed said. “It’s not legally binding, and while the courts tend to give deference to the Attorney General’s opinions, neither the courts nor the cities of the state are bound to them. That being said, the Attorney General’s Office has very skilled lawyers whom I don’t doubt answered many questions that were posed to them about this issue, so I’m not questioning this outcome, which gives the cities of Marysville and Arlington guidance on the options that are available to them.”

While Weed emphasized that no final decision has been made regarding the production, processing or sales of marijuana in the city of Marysville, he did acknowledge that the city’s Planning Commission voted by a 4-to-2 margin on Tuesday, Jan. 14, to recommend to the Marysville City Council that they prohibit all three within the city limits.

Marysville City Council member Steve Muller brings with him a certain measure of experience in such affairs, since he previously served as a member of the Planning Commission, but he was not inclined to either second-guess the Planning Commission’s judgement or even offer a definitive opinion of his own yet.

“There’s still a lot of gray areas here, and I wouldn’t want to see them worked out in Marysville’s backyard,” Muller said. “I don’t know how this all will fall out. I do question some of the assumptions about the tax revenues that this will generate, because if the product winds up costing more, it could become less competitive with what’s sold on the streets. This is a new industry, so we’re still seeing how this will play out. My position is, if we’re going to do something, let’s take the time to do it right the first time.”

Kamille Norton is the newest Marysville City Council member, having been appointed in February and elected in November of last year, and she sounded an even more deliberately neutral note than Muller.

“I’m waiting to review the Planning Commission’s recommendation for myself, and until then, I’m staying open-minded,” Norton said. “I do think the interim moratorium was the correct course of action to allow us time to study and explore this issue.”

Norton reported having spoken to a number of citizens and business owners on this subject, and regardless of their opinions, she described them as passionate about the matter.

While no set date has been released yet for the Marysville City Council to decide on this issue, Weed predicted it would be scheduled within the next several weeks, in February or March at the latest.

In 2012, I-502 passed statewide with 55.7 percent “Yes” votes. Locally it received 178,669 “Yes” votes out of 327,303 votes cast, or 54.59 percent of the vote in Snohomish County, and Marysville voters approved it by a slightly narrower margin, with 13,037 “Yes” votes out of 25,523 votes cast, or 51.07 percent of the vote.

Finally! Indian Country Gets Its Labor Force Report

Gale Courey Toensing, Indian Country Today Media Network

The Interior Department has published the latest report on the American Indian population and labor force, updating and improving on the previous report that was published in 2007 with data from nine years ago.

The 2013 American Indian and Labor Force Report was published January 16 and sent to Congress as mandated by Public Law 102-477– the Indian Employment, Training, and Related Services Demonstration Act of 1992.

The 151-page report presents findings from the 2010 Labor Force Survey of American Indians and Alaska combined with statistics produced by the 2010 U.S. Census–the most recent year for which adequate statistics were available. The data is based on populations of American Indians and Alaska Natives living on or near the service areas of federally recognized tribes. It doesn’t count members of federally recognized tribes who are living far away from federally recognized tribes’ areas – one of several complications created by data limitations.

Spoiler alert: This report full of statistical tables and charts is not your relaxing bedtime easy-to-read government report (if indeed such a report exists).

Attention government policy wonks: This one’s for you.

Some of the report’s main findings are:

— Approximately 28.1 percent of the Native population is below 16 years of age, with slightly more boys than girls. Approximately 64.8 percent is between16 and 64, with slightly more females. Those ages 65 and older represent only 7.1 percent of the population, with more women than men (4.0 percent versus 3.1 percent).

— About 50 percent of all the Native Americans studied, who are 16 years or older, are employed either full or part time in civilian jobs.

— Approximately 21 percent of all Native American employees work for a government (federal, state, local, or tribal).

— In some states, less than 50 percent of Native Americans 16 years or older among those studied are working.

— An estimated 23 percent of all Native American families in the United States in 2010 earned incomes that are below the poverty line.

— The highest estimated rate of poverty is in South Dakota, with 43-47 percent of Native American families in 2010 earning incomes below the poverty line.

The report is produced and published by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) under Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn, who had promised its completion in 2013. The two-week delay in publication was caused in part by the two-week government shutdown last October.

“It was a tough year with the government shut down and sequestration so everything suffered a bit and, quite frankly, this report is quite a challenge,” Washburn told Indian Country Today Media Network.

Washburn said he hopes the report, together with other data, will be useful in determining relative needs for resources in different regions across Indian country. But “[I]t will always necessarily be a historical document. We simply do not have the staff to produce up-to-the-minute data, and the report is called for only once every two years. That said, it can give a general impression of relative need.”

The Interior Department came under fire by Congress last summer for the delay in publishing the report. The report is supposed to be published every two years, but the department didn’t produced a report in 2009 or 2011. Washburn, who was appointed in late 2012, got the report out in a little over a year.

The law mandating the report doesn’t provide funding for it. One full-time employee – an economist – was assigned the task of producing the report. “It would take a small army of researchers to capture all the nuances so we are limited. The idea is to have higher quality data produced and this report does have higher quality data than previous reports because we were much more careful about the methodology.”

But it’s a question of priorities, according to Washburn. Although the report is “not unimportant,” Washburn said he didn’t want to pull human resources from other important aspects of the BIA’s mission “and I’m not sure Congress would like us to. I don’t think Congress wants us to be a statistical agency. I think it wants us to provide services to Indian people. I think it’s going to be hard for us to regularly produce high quality statistical reports.”

So why not hand the task over to the Census Bureau or Labor Department with their armies of researchers with expertise in statistics?

“I’m not authorized to do that,” Washburn said.

Until Congress considers such a hand-over, the BIA will consult more with Indian country “to find how they think we could be doing this report more effectively… We have an obligation if we produce a report there has to be some integrity to it and a certain level of quality is required,” Washburn said. “And that’s difficult to achieve with our limited resources.”

Humetewa Close to Becoming First Female Native on Federal Bench

Rob Capriccioso, Indian Country Today Media Network

Hopi citizen Diane Humetewa smiled through a positive nomination hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 28 in her effort to be confirmed as a U.S. district judge in Arizona.

President Barack Obama nominated Humetewa to the position in 2013 after his administration previously forced her to step down from a U.S. attorney position in Arizona in 2009. At that time, the president chose Dennis Burke to take her position, but Burke resigned in August 2011 after admitting to leaking information about a federal agent. Humetewa went on to become a professor and lawyer at Arizona State University.

Many in Indian country were glad that Obama decided to give Humetewa a second look, this time to become the first female Native American to serve on the federal bench. She would be only the third Indian to do so in history if confirmed to the position by the full Senate.

Judging from support given to her by both Democratic and Republican senators at her nomination hearing, she will likely easily pass the committee, and then her nomination will proceed for consideration by the full Senate.

One of Humetewa’s main champions is Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) who recommended her for both her previous U.S. attorney position and for the federal judgeship. The senator, whom she previously worked for when he led the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, introduced her with supportive remarks at the confirmation hearing.

“It has been said that the Arizona bench ‘would be enriched by a member who reflects the community it serves.’ With that in mind, I am particularly excited about our third nominee, Diane J. Humetewa, also to the District of Arizona, in Phoenix,” McCain said. “Ms. Humetewa’s nomination is truly historic: Being a member of the Hopi Nation, if Ms. Humetewa is confirmed, she would be the first Native American woman to ever serve on the federal bench.

“Ms. Humetewa’s service to the Hopi Nation, which includes work as prosecutor and an appellate court judge to the tribe, runs deep and has remained a cornerstone of her career,” McCain added. “She is also a long-time advocate for victim’s rights, which can be traced back to her service as a victim advocate before she attended law school.”

McCain’s support for Humetewa serves as a stark contrast to his criticism of the president’s nomination of Cherokee citizen Keith Harper to become a U.S. representative to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. Harper’s nomination stalled in the Senate last December due partly to McCain’s concerns about Harper’s human rights record, but Harper was re-nominated earlier in January to the same position by the president.

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), who chaired the hearing, said that she was impressed that McCain and committee member Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Arizona) worked in a bipartisan fashion with the White House to help fill several Arizona judicial vacancies.

Humetewa said at the hearing that she was very pleased to be joined by family members, friends and colleagues. She added that her parents were watching the hearing via webcam from back home on the Hopi reservation.

In response to a question from Hirono regarding how her past judicial work with the Hopi Tribe would help her in this position, Humetewa said that she learned to be objective and timely in her decision making during her time with that tribal court.

In response to a question from Flake on the implementation of pro-tribal elements of the Violence Against Women Act and the Tribal Law and Order Act, Humetewa noted that both laws are in their infancy, but she said she looks forward to working with tribes that take on the increased jurisdictional opportunities offered under those laws.

Also in response to a question from Flake, Humetewa noted that she helped prepare a 2007 report by the Native American Subcommittee of the U.S. Sentencing Commission that found disparities in the application of sentencing guidelines to Native Americans. Penalties were harsher for Indians who committed assaults in Indian country versus non-Indian who were sentenced in state courts for similar assaults, she testified. If sentencing guidelines are to be modified in the future, she said tribal consultation would be important to achieve.

Flake, impressed with Humetewa’s responses, said he was delighted by her “trailblazing way.”

Tribes could get help for sockeye fishery closure

Associated Press

SEATTLE — Commercial and tribal fishermen in Washington state could be getting federal help after the closure of the Fraser River sockeye salmon fishery last year cost them millions of dollars.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker issued a disaster declaration for the fishery Tuesday. That allows Congress to send money to the affected communities.

The Fraser River flows from the Canadian Rockies into the Strait of Georgia at Vancouver, British Columbia. Low returns of sockeye to the river prompted the closure.

Several Washington tribes, including the Lummis, Nooksacks and Tulalips, fish for sockeye. They and the state’s nontribal, commercial fishermen typically bring in a collective $4.1 million per year from sockeye. The Commerce Department says last year, the total was just $115,000.

Pritzker said that if Congress appropriates money, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will work closely with Congress, the tribes and the state to distribute it.

Deadline approaches for first Cobell land consolidation offers

Source: Indianz.com

Deadlines are fast approaching for Indian landowners to accept offers being made under the Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations.

The first offers went out last month to members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe of South Dakota. Responses are due starting this Wednesday.

Offers went out to members of the Makah Nation of Washington last month as well. Responses are due at various times, until February 10, according to a reminder from the the Interior Department.

Participation is entirely voluntary. Acquisitions will be paid out of a $1.9 billion land consolidation fund that was created by the $3.4 billion Cobell settlement.

A portion of each purchase will go to the Cobell scholarship fund. Up to $60 million will be awarded to Indian students.

The Oglala Sioux and Makah were the first tribes to sign cooperative agreements under the program. Offers will be made on other reservations in the country.

Klamath Youth Program Melding Science and Traditional Knowledge Wins National Award

U.S. Fish and Wildlife ServiceService biologists provide tribal youth in northern California and southern Oregon with a unique opportunity to combine their cultural knowledge about the local ecology with the high-tech capabilities of NASA, the Service and other federal agencies. — U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Service biologists provide tribal youth in northern California and southern Oregon with a unique opportunity to combine their cultural knowledge about the local ecology with the high-tech capabilities of NASA, the Service and other federal agencies.

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

A unique collaboration between a Klamath youth leadership development program and U.S. government researchers has won the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Partners in Conservation award for its use of traditional knowledge in conjunction with modern science.

The Klamath Tribal Leadership Development for Integrative Science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge Program, operating in northern California and southern Oregon, was one of just four recipients working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Klamath Tribes said in a media release. The partnership was one of 20 recipients overall out of groups working with various federal agencies on environmental conservation and won for its work in habitat restoration and the implications for fisheries management.

The cornerstone was the Klamath tribal youth program, started last summer to connect scientists and college students to Klamath Basin restoration projects. Juxtaposing traditional knowledge and modern science, youths from the Yurok Tribe, Hoopa Valley Tribe, Karuk Tribe, Quartz Valley Indian Reservation and Klamath Tribes worked with scientists from NASA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Forest Service for 10 weeks in the Klamath Tribal Leadership Development Program for Integrative Science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Together the partners restored habitat, developed models and collected data from two Klamath watershed tributaries, the Sycan River in Oregon and Shasta Big Springs Creek in California, that support tribal fisheries, the Klamath said in the statement.

The U.S. Department of the Interior noted the unique melding of tribal cultural knowledge with today’s technology that got the program chosen out of the 14 partnerships that were nominated for the award by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Students worked first with tribal elders to gather ancestral knowledge of the region’s lands and waterways, then applied that knowledge to programs whose goal is to restore and manage native fish populations in the Klamath Basin. At the same time, the program gave tribal youth job skills, setting them up as future conservation leaders even as they contributed to present-day management of fish species that are important to indigenous culture and the ecology, the Fish and Wildlife Service said in a release.

“This partnership has the promise to result in some of the most advanced approaches to fisheries management in the country and will help prepare tribal youth for future careers in conservation,” the Fish and Wildlife Service said. “To date, these agencies have brought their collective resources and expertise with established and emerging technologies and have applied these to this collaborative effort, including remote sensing and unmanned aircraft systems. These technologies hold promise for improving our knowledge base and conservation effectiveness through energy efficient, cost-effective approaches to data collection with less impact on our ecosystems.”

Other partners involved were the Nature Conservancy, Humboldt State University, Southern Oregon University and the Oregon Institute of Technology, the Klamath statement said.

“The Department of the Interior is proud to recognize the accomplishments of those who are innovating and collaborating in ways that address today’s complex conservation and stewardship challenges,” said Department of the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, who handed out the awards on January 16. “These partnerships represent the gold standard for how Interior is doing business across the nation to power our future, strengthen tribal nations, conserve and enhance America’s great outdoors and engage the next generation.”

Proud honorees. (Photo: Courtesy Klamath Tribes)