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TRAINING: Foundations of Indian Law and Policy

At the request of several regional directors in 1997, the American Indian Liaison Office developed a National Park Service workshop on the Foundations of Indian Law and Policy to provide information necessary to improve relationships between the National Park Service and American Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments.

There are three substantive objectives of the workshop.

(1) The National Park Service has special responsibilities to tribal governments and Indian individuals. Participants should be able to articulate these responsibilities at the end of the workshop.
(2) There is a clear legal foundation that requires the National Park Service to treat Indian governments as sovereign nations. Participants should be able to articulate the basic principles of that legal foundation and should understand the basis of government-to-government relations.
(3) These special political and legal relationships must be acted upon in the context of specific tribal cultures and values which may require special management practices and procedures.

Offered 22 times, workshops have been held in each of the 7 regions as well as in 7 parks. The Intermountain Region has sponsored four regional workshops along with workshops in the Flagstaff Area Parks; Glacier National Park; Grand Canyon National Park; Glen Canyon National Recreation Area; and Grand Teton National Park. The Pacific West Region in addition to sponsoring three regional workshops has also sponsored one at Death Valley National Park. The 20th workshop was co-sponsored by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and Olympic National Park.

The primary instructor, Charles Wilkinson, of the University of Colorado School of Law, is a nationally recognized expert in the fields of Indian law and policy, natural resource law and public lands law.

Of the 695 people who have received training in this intense 2-day workshop,

514 are from the National Park Service from 129 parks, all 7 regions and WASO;
97 tribal participants are from 30 tribal governments and 11 tribal organizations;
Other participants represented the U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service, FBI, park cooperating associations and concessioners, state and local governments, and congressional offices.

Workshop participants receive a text book before the workshop with a reading assignment and a pre-course written assignment; and a sourcebook is provided at the workshop. The alphabetical cumulative participants list, an overview of participants by region, and the table of contents for the most recent sourcebook are listed below.

Documents
Participants in the NPS Foundations of Indian Law and Policy Workshops, 1997-2008 (doc)
Overview and Cumulative Participants List (doc)
Contents of Sourcebook, October 2008 (doc)

Information about other training that may be available or may be of interest is also described below.

Links
Webcast Training on Consultation

Documents
Description of Training Seminar (doc)

Training for Cultural and Natural Resource Staff

In several previous years, there was a class that was given annually [during the 3rd week in May]that was available to cultural resource staff and natural resource staff. Entitled "American Indians and Cultural and Natural Resource Management: The Law and Practice Regarding Federal Lands", it was a week long course.

Target audience: federal agency line officers, resource managers and specialists, NEPA coordinators, tribal relations managers, and representatives of tribal governments.

The course is designed and taught by Professor Raymond Cross, School of Law, University of Montana, and by Stephen Pevar, Senior Staff Counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union.

It was most recently held on May 20-24, 2002, at Fort Berthold, North Dakota, and was sponsored by the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, U.S.G.S., and The Three Affiliated Tribes.

It was decided that the class could not be held in 2003 due to travel and budget restrictions. For more information about the class, contact Dave Ruppert at 303/969-2879.