U.S. states are profiting off more than two million acres of land sprinkled throughout Native American reservations, and almost half of that acreage is located in the Mountain West.
That’s according to a recently released investigation, which found that revenue from these lands largely goes towards state institutions, but tribes are often the ones paying.
The report from news outlets High Country News and Grist shows a checkerboarded map inside reservations.
The lead data reporter on the project, Maria Parazo Rose, said there’s often misconceptions that reservations are left alone by states, along with stereotypes of Indigenous peoples “leeching off the government.”
“Our data not only contradicts these notions, but shows that the opposite is true, that settlers rely on Indigenous land and rely on resources to support their institutions,” Parazo Rose said.
Revenue from state trust lands helps pay for public education, hospitals and jails — institutions that serve largely non-Indigenous people.
“The money generated offsets taxpayer dollars,” Parazo Rose added.
Cris Stainbrook with the Indian Land Tenure Foundation said this system of checkerboarded reservations makes it hard for these sovereign nations to care for their lands.
“How do you manage on a landscape basis your lands when you can't have jurisdiction over those other pieces that are there?” Stainbrook said.
He said tribes are often paying thousands of dollars a year to lease that land back. On the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, the Ute Tribe pays more than $25,000 a year to graze on trust lands, according to the investigation.
State trust lands, including Wyoming's, are also often set aside to drill for fossil fuels. That happens on roughly one-fifth of the parcels.
“Realistically, the state is trying to make money to go into their budget coffers, and they don't really care much if the tribe wants to protect it for something else,” Stainbrook said. “If there's money to be made, that's where they're going to go.”
Some states are transferring land to tribes, but Stainbrook said only when it’s not worth much. He said he hopes that investigations like this can help better inform the general public and bring about change.
Credit: High Country News and Grist
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
