Tribes and Native Villages are demonstrating reinvigorated environmental activism as they face new pressures on the natural resources many depend on for their economic and cultural livelihood. From the Standing Rock Sioux tribe's protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Pawnee Nation's allegations of earthquake damages due to fracking; to Alaska Native Villages relocating their communities in the face of rising sea levels and impacts to the Navajo Nation by the closure of a major coal plant, there is clearly a growing role for environmental attorneys in Indian country.
Yet this field is distinct, involving matters of sovereignty, reserved treaty rights, and religious freedom. This seminar will explore key concepts of the trust relationship between tribes and the federal government, and the role tribes and Native Villages play in managing their natural resources, through co-management, contracts, and the "tribal amendments" incorporated in many of the major environmental statutes. The seminar will cover a number of the legal tools uniquely available to tribes, including the duty to consult, Indian treaty canons of interpretation, and specific protections for subsistence activities, water resources, and cultural legacies.
This seminar will provide environmental law practitioners with the fundamentals of Indian law, application of federal environmental statutes to tribal lands, and the challenges to—and opportunities for—responsibly managing natural resources in Indian country.
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