American Indian Religious Freedom and Cultural Resources Management: Protecting Mother Earth's Caretakers

Abstract

otherwise help implement the policy of protecting Native American religious rights and practices, section 2 of AIRFA mandated the President to direct an evaluation by federal agencies of their policies and procedures "in consultation with native traditional religious leaders" and to report the results of this evaluation to Congress.' The resultant American Indian Religious Freedom Act Report 6 describes many actions which were taken by federal agencies to implement the policy of AIRFA as well as other actions that were recommended. Despite the statement of policy and the actions and recommendations to implement the policy, several conflicts involving Indian religious freedom have resulted in litigation. 7 In all of the cases in which Indians have sought access to and protection of 5. 42 U.S.C. § 1996 (Supp. IV 1980). 6. FEDERAL AGENCIES TASK FORCE, AMERICAN INDIAN RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ACT REPORT, Pub. L. 95-341 (1979) [hereinafter cited as AIRFA REPORT]. Pursuant to section 2 of AIRFA, the AIRFA Report was to have included recommendations for legislation. None were included, although there were several references to such "recommendations are currently being reviewed within the Administration." Id. at 63, 67, 75, 81. However, no such recommendations have been submitted to Congress. In addition, the AIRFA Report contained several recommendations for "uniform administrative procedure." Id. at 62, 71, 75, 81. These recommendations were formulated into a proposed executive order, which, however, did not reach the President's desk. In response to objections raised within the Office of the Secretary, Department of the Interior, the Deputy Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs returned the proposed executive order to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs with a directive to prepare a report to the Secretary. Memorandum from Philip S. Deloria, Deputy Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs, to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs (Jan. 15, 1981). Although preparation of the report was begun, including correspondence with relevant federal agencies, the report was never completed. In light of the ambivalence demonstrated by the Department's response to the mandate of AIRFA and the inherent conflicts between Indian religious interests and the Department's various missions, should the Congress determine that further administrative review is needed to carry out the policy of AIRFA fully, lead responsibility should be assigned to an agency with less likelihood that its primary missions will interfere with presenting recommendations to the Congress. The United States Civil Rights Commission may be an appropriate agency. 7. Wilson v.

Transboundary cultural resources: Sacred wildlife, Indigenous emotions, and conservation decision-making

“…Despite the grizzly's importance to participants and their communities, none of them were consulted prior to the delisting in any meaningful way. Instead, participants believed decision-makers and the decision itself supported the economic interests of dominant colonial culture by appeasing ranching advocates and removing habitat protections that would allow extractive industries to plunder protected areas, providing more evidence that Indigenous underrepresentation in these types of decisions is purposeful, racist, and disrespectful (Braun 2002;Bixler 2013;Fraser 1997;LaDuke 1999;Stoffle and Evans 1990;Suagee 1982). Overall, our analysis demonstrates the importance of considering socio-spatial dimensions of emotions in environmental conflict, as suggested by González-Hidalgo and Zografos (2020), especially as humans migrate to different places through multiple forms of displacement, such as those migrating because of climate change.…”

“…Participants believed the only purpose of hunting grizzlies would be to take trophies, to clear obstacles for industry, and to remove threats from ranching and livestock operations. These perspectives reflect a historical narrative that natural resource policy decision-makers are more concerned with the interests of the settler-colonial class (Braun 2002;Stoffle and Evans 1990;Suagee 1982) and mirrors the historical experience in which the hunting of culturally significant animals served the larger project of Indigenous genocide and land dispossession (LaDuke 1999). According to a representative of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe, who live in the current range of the grizzly, the delisting, along with the potential for hunting, was an urgent matter because it represented yet another threat to their sovereignty, to their right to coexist with grizzlies and enjoy their lands as they are, and to their right to freely practice their spirituality.…”

“…In addition to detrimental material and physical effects, including dispossession and malnutrition, the outcomes of these decisions and the attendant struggles of underrepresented communities to obtain or access natural resources have been linked to significant negative emotional consequences (Dallman et al 2013;Norgaard and Reed 2017;Sultana 2011Sultana , 2015. These outcomes disproportionately impact Indigenous Peoples compared to those who are adequately represented in the decision-making processes of settler-colonial cultures (Braun 2002;Eichler and Baumeister 2018;Norgaard and Reed 2017;Stoffle and Evans 1990;Suagee 1982). In part, this is because natural resource policy tends not to distinguish between Indigenous Peoples and the resource-rich spaces in which they reside.…”

Cultural resource management: The risk of compliance

“…Second, some traditional tribal governments and individuals oppose the analytical process used by technical experts because it fragments cultural data to facilitate analysis and interpretation of social, psychological, and religious dimensions. They argue that the analytical approach is insensitive and that the meaning of the sacred phenomena will be lost or misunderstood (Suagee 1982;Deloria 1983). Sensitive information about beliefs and on-going spiritual experiences is transformed by the tenets of scientific materialism and is sometimes challenged by federal administrators and the courts.…”