Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2023
Abstract
Due to the increasing pressures of the climate change crisis, federal and state governments are beginning to acknowledge that Indigenous-led stewardship and control over Tribal aboriginal homelands is a crucial component of addressing climate change. In the United States, Tribal nations have a long history of responsible land stewardship, with environmental conservation and respect for the world's biodiversity being an inextricable piece of Tribal customs, traditions, and knowledge. This Article strives to pay due respect to traditional land stewardship and its important role in the past, present, and future.
Part I of this Article starts with an overview of the history of forcible dispossession of Native American land, and provides initial thoughts on the myriad of meanings that the expression "Land Back" can hold. The United States has a long history of forcibly removing Native American Tribes from their ancestral homelands and relocating them to smaller plots of land, with some estimates indicating Tribal nations ultimately lost 98.9% of their aboriginal homelands post-contact. Part II will discuss how this change in land tenure and land use can be linked to climate change, with Indigenous communities often at the frontline of climate change events. Additionally, areas predominantly occupied by Indigenous peoples are frequently more prone to experience extreme weather conditions, such as extreme heat, drought, greater wildfire risks, and extreme flooding, the latter of which has caused the relocation of some coastal Indigenous communities.
Parts III, IV, and V of this Article explore the efforts being made on the federal, state, and Tribal level to return land to its original caretakers and discusses practical ways that Tribal governments and organizations are achieving Land Back through mutual goals of conservation and repatriation. While the preferred method used by the federal and state governments and their respective agencies has been to extend opportunities for Tribal co-management, this is not enough to curb the urgency of the impending climate disaster, the effects of which have been, and will continue to be, felt first and foremost by Indigenous peoples. It is time for Land Back. There is no clearer argument for Land Back than to prevent irreparable harm to the planet-a cause that is unquestionably in the greatest good for all people.
Publication Title
Colorado Environmental Law Journal
Volume
34
First Page
175
Last Page
212
Keywords
Land Back, climate justice, Indian removal, climate change, tribal land co-management
Recommended Citation
Vanessa Racehorse,
Achieving Climate Justice Through Land Back: An Overview of Tribal Dispossession, Land Return Efforts, and Practical Mechanisms for #LandBack,
34
Colorado Environmental Law Journal
175
(2023).
Available at:
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/law_facultyscholarship/945
