For more than three decades, Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act has given Tribal Nations a meaningful voice in federal decisions affecting sacred sites, ancestral landscapes, burial grounds and other places central to Native culture and identity. But the current US regime’s hand-picked Advisory Council on Historic Preservation has advanced a proposal to gut this historic legislation and eliminate Tribal voices, potentially giving the regime carte blanche to bulldoze, mine, dismantle, disturb, and otherwise defile sacred lands, even those protected by law and/or by treaty.
Individual Tribal nations as well as the Association on American Indian Affairs (AAIA) – the longest serving national Native non-profit – are united in their opposition to this undoing of law and treaty. For example, this op-ed in Native News Online:
Don’t Let Washington Erase Tribal Voices from Historic Preservation
Our task as allies is to contact the federal agency responsible for upholding the law and express our support for tribal sovereignty and maintaining the sanctity of historic sites.
Contact Us: Advisory Council on Historic Preservation