Native Nations, Public Lands, and the Trump 2.0 Era

Publication Title

American Bar Association Section on Environment, Energy & Resources

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Summary

  • The Trump administration’s return to a bygone, simplistic narrative of public lands rooted in monopolistic and exclusionary visions suggests a return to a darker era in which the future of all public lands was uncertain and the rights and interests of Native Nations were marginalized, if not altogether erased, from consideration.
  • Efforts to transfer public lands to state control or ownership and their disposal to private interests raise profound questions regarding the abrogation of treaty rights and the federal government’s trust obligation to Native Nations.
  • The administration’s narrow, transactional view of public lands—to be managed as mere economic assets, divested, and administered using fast track procedures—marks a significant step back from the federal government’s continuing efforts to fulfill its trust duties to Native Nations.

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