Tribal sovereignty: Living in Pacific Northwest Indian Country and the challenges ahead

Indigenous peoples have been in North America since time immemorial.

The confluence of the Snake, Yakima, and Columbia Rivers, now known as the Tri-Cities, was a gathering place for commerce, trading, games and socializing for many native bands from far and wide

Tribal sovereignty will be the subject of the Columbia Basin Badger Club’s online Zoom forum beginning at noon on Thursday, March 13.

Before non-natives arrived in the Pacific Northwest, the waters were clean, the fish and game were plentiful, and native communities thrived.

There were countless languages spoken, indigenous bands traveled according to the seasons.

Non-natives started to colonize the region in large numbers in the 1830’s and 1840’s. Violence, disease and the rapid limiting of native rights followed.

Natives were pressed to sign treaties, transferring much of the region’s lands to the government and moving natives to reservations. The government attempted cultural assimilation of native peoples.

Since their inception, treaties have been broken. Tribes have had some successes litigating treaty rights.

The famous “Boldt Decision” of the 1970s, for example, enforced some treaty fishing rights for the tribal parties to the case. Another example is the return of nearly all of Mt. Adams to the Yakama Nation in 1972.

Tribes and non-native communities alike are faced with critical water resource and land management challenges caused by a changing climate.

We will need science, land knowledge and participation from everyone to find a path forward for future generations.

It has been said that non-native efforts to work with the tribes will be more effective if we can learn to offend native people 50 percent less and engage with them 25 percent more effectively. Understanding tribal sovereignty and the fundamentals of tribal nations will help this process.

The Badger Club has invited two experts to help us understand the foundational concept of tribal sovereignty, including its origins, history, and implications for public policy in the Northwest:

▪ Jennifer Whitener Ulrich is a first-generation descendant of the Squaxin Island Tribe. She is co-owner and COO of The Whitener Group, which provides strategic and economic development support for tribes and tribal enterprises. She holds an MBA in sustainable business from Pinchot University and has expertise in economic development, strategic planning, nonprofit organizational development, entrepreneurial systems, marketing and financial analysis.

▪ Malena Pinkham is a local attorney who was born and raised in the Tri-Cities and is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and currently a staff attorney at Columbia Legal Services. Before that, Malena was in-house counsel for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation for nearly 7 years.

▪ Guest moderator for this forum will be Anna King. A Richland resident, she is a correspondent for Northwest Public Broadcasting covering Washington and Oregon from the tribes to nuclear reactors to Mexican rodeos. Her work has been recognized with two Gracie awards honoring women in media, and a Sigma Delta Chi Award in breaking news. In 2016 she was named Woman of the Year for Washington State University.

This forum will be a special 90-minute event including a moderated Q&A session for those who attend. Club members can attend for free, while others will pay $5. Register at www.columbiabasinbadgers.com.