Impacts on Cultural Sovereignty and the Exercise of Reserved and Treaty-Protected Rights of Tribal People of the Pacific Northwest Plateau

Abstract

Today, all global people are experiencing climate change impacts on lands and waters. They are challenged in how to mitigate or restore environments impacted by chemical pollution, overapplication of fertilizers, and clearcutting of forests. All these human impacts cause imbalances in the global carbon and nutrient cycles and increase the loss of biodiversity and healthy environments. These changes impact tribal customary and current lands, and their cultural resources and practices. For the Confederated Tribes of the Colville, their past, present, and future are inextricably linked to salmon's continued existence and the health of the Columbia River. To comprehend how tribes make holistic decisions, it is important to recognize Tribal history and how the European colonizers and the U.S. Federal government impacted it over centuries. An important part of the story is how culture sustained the original inhabitants of these lands and continues to determine how they form knowledge and make decisions today. For Tribes land and water continue to be viewed through a lens of intergenerational knowledge. The priority for Tribes is to make land-water decisions at the landscape scale that recognizes the interconnections between environmental elements. They prioritize making decisions supporting the survival of cultural resources like salmon without polluting and eliminating landscape elements critical for a healthy environment. Culture and storytelling are interwoven circles that have Tribes exploring environmental problems holistically. This dissertation answers two questions: (1) As a generality, how does culture impact how indigenous, rural community and urban dwellers form knowledge and set priorities to restore land or water negatively impacted by climate change? This provides a framework for how Tribes make decisions on land and water. It will demonstrate the differences that culture and history introduce into community decisions for land, water, and cultural resources; and (2) When forming knowledge on a land and water problem, how does using a holistic approach to form knowledge of an environmental problem change what information and who is included in the decision process? In this part of the dissertation, the Pacific Northwest will be used as a case study to tell stories of how, when, where, why and how Tribes utilize different approaches to mitigating and restoring the interconnections that make the land and water healthy. It will show how tribal success in land and water management and restoration includes state and federal government agencies, and rural communities. Despite all these challenges, Tribes manage landscapes despite living on a smaller piece of land while also collaborating with a diversity of landowners to restore habitat for cultural species.