The Public Lands Ruling: A Step Forward for Conservation and Indigenous Rights
By Erika Pietrzak, August 6, 2024
The Public Lands Ruling is a crucial step forward for tribes and the environment alike. But what is this ruling and why does it matter?
In June, a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) ruling went into effect regarding tribal land and President Biden’s promise to tribal authority and priorities. The BLM oversees around 245 million acres of land, primarily in the Western United States. The Public Lands Ruling is a crucial step forward for tribes and the environment alike. But what is this ruling and why does it matter?
The Public Lands Ruling has several major parts that are being written out for the first time ever. The ruling directs the BLM in co-stewardship opportunities with tribes and the use of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). This ruling also “elevates conservation’s status as a valid land ‘use’ alongside recreation, grazing and oil and gas development.” Finally, the ruling standardizes the nominating process of an area of critical environmental concern (ACEC), a flexible designation for land that can be used to help tribes protect their cultural and subsistence needs. This means that tribes can nominate land that is important to their culture and survival for special protections while using TEK as an accepted and appreciated argument. With the co-stewardship requirement and outlined objectives of the ruling, it also means that tribes can take an active part in their land’s management, granting agency that has long been stripped from these stewards.
The ruling has been praised by many tribes for its focus “on ecosystem resilience and having healthy public lands that everybody can use for future generations, [something] tribes have known how to do that since time immemorial.” This opens many doors that were closed during the Trump administration. Under Trump in 2021, all 14 tribe-nominated ACECs were rejected by the BLM, and 1.8 million acres of ACECs were overturned to open sacred areas to mining and extraction. Altogether, this ruling commits to helping the BLM “build and maintain resilient ecosystems on public lands by protecting intact and functioning landscapes, restoring degraded habitat and ecosystems, and implementing science and data as the foundation for management decisions.”
Bois Forte Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe at a special event in June 2022, courtesy of the Bois Forte Ban
Indigenous communities have lost almost 99 percent of their historical land extent since white settlers took over. The areas tribes have been displaced to, mostly in the western United States, are now particularly vulnerable to climate change. Today, more than 40 percent of tribes have no federally or state-recognized land. Those who do have recognized land are at an average of 2.6% of their estimated historical area. Nearly half of these tribes experience heightened wildfire exposures at their current locations. Expert Kyle Whyte states “[t]he reason why tribal nations are located in the places they are is because the U.S. tried to remove them and get them out of the way, so that the U.S. could build this massive industrial economy, that we now know contributes to increased concentrations of increased greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.” This emphasizes why we must reconcile for past damages that have lasting, monumental impacts and The Public Lands Ruling is a step forward in this regard.
Tribal land is also crucial to the progression of the environmental movement. Since time immemorial, indigenous communities have sustained and prospered on the United States’ land. Indigenous communities are the original inhabitants and stewards of our land and should be treated with the respect of this title. Protecting Indigenous-important lands “creates opportunities to provide educational resources, supports access for traditional and subsistence uses, honors current and ancestral connections to the land and ensures these sites are not lost for future generations.”
The rule, however, does have some controversy as originally allowed “for conservation leasing which advocates say puts conservation on equal footing with fossil fuel extraction and grazing.” Republican opponents claimed the ruling will limit access to public lands and “prioritize conservation over other uses.” The ruling adjusted in its official writing to explicitly allow for sustainable curation of the land to combat these complaints. I argue prioritizing conservation over other uses is not a negative to this ruling, as does The Wilderness Society president who hailed the ruling as creating “sanctuary for wildlife, stronghold for Indigenous cultural sites, haven for outdoor recreation and engine for a robust and responsible clean energy revolution.”
Keith Jensen, council leader for Pedro Bay, and his daughter Bianca catching salmon in their subsistence net in Bristol Bay, Alaska. [Photo by Bri Dwyer]
This ruling opens hope for the future, but still shows gaps that need to be addressed further. There are still biases against TEK that must be addressed in the acceptance process for ACECs, including adding more Native individuals to the BLM and similar groups, like the Environmental Protection Agency.
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