Could Montana Parks See Tribal Land Restorations

A tribe in California just won back a slice of their ancestral homeland within one of the most celebrated national parks in America. According to the Fresno Bee, the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation reclaimed 900 acres near Yosemite National Park. The land in the Merced River Canyon was returned through an arrangement with private donors and a land trust. The 900 acres even has a historic village site. For the first time in generations, a portion of the cultural landscape that was once home to them is legally theirs to manage, visit, and protect.

That alone is a big story. But it raises a question for a place like Montana, where our tribal nations have their own long histories of what would one day become Glacier National Park, Yellowstone National Park, and big chunks of federal land.

Is This Even Possible in Montana

The deal was not a transfer from the National Park Service of Yosemite. It was from a private land donation. The Fresno Bee makes that explicit. The federal government didn’t just give up the land in Yosemite. Instead, private owners and a conservation group facilitated the transfer.

That matters as we consider whether there are large parcels of land inside Glacier or Yellowstone that Montana’s tribes could take back. Both are entirely under federal control. Any significant land return would require an act of Congress or some sort of exchange with private property that is tucked up near federal boundaries. And Montana does have places like the Missouri Breaks, where land ownership is a hodgepodge of public and private. If a land trust or private landowner wanted to collaborate with a tribe in the same way, it could happen here. It wouldn’t be easy, but the example of Yosemite suggests it isn’t necessarily impossible.

A Moment to Watch

What happened in California is a model for how tribes can re-establish ties to places that defined their history. If that’s with the help of creative partnerships like these and contributions from outside donors, all the better.