By Rob Edward
This week, the Global Indigenous Council (GIC) declared support for Colorado’s wolf reintroduction ballot measure. GIC members have expressed a deep commitment to ensuring a sustainable future for gray wolves, and the ballot measure manifests the purpose and objective of GIC’s Wolf Treaty.
The GIC was joined by leaders from the Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council and the Great Plains Tribal Chairman’s Association. Led by the GIC, the organizations and their member tribes were instrumental in defeating the Trump Administration in the seminal case, Crow Tribe, et al v. Zinke (/Bernhardt), which returned Endangered Species Act protections to the grizzly bear in Greater Yellowstone, and preserved tribes’ religious freedoms and treaty rights.
The Wolf Treaty codifies the signatory members’ commitment to honor, recognize, and revitalize their ancient relationship with the wolf. As the Wolf Treaty states, “[We] welcome the wolf to once again live beside us as Creator intended and to restore balance to Mother Earth where we are the stewards and the wolf is a protector of our lands.”
“This is an important development for the Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council,” said Gerald Gray – Chairman of the Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council [1] and Chairman of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians. “Our people are the original stewards of the land. Engaging in this initiative will provide us with input into decisions that impact the traditional territory of several of our member tribes whose perspectives haven’t been heard in Colorado since the 1860s. We look forward to working with our Ute brothers and sisters on the wolf as we did on the grizzly bear issue.”
Chairman Harold Frazier, Chairman of the Great Plains Tribal Chairman’s Association, [2] has become one of the best-known tribal leaders in the United States, who has offered steadfast leadership on a wide-range of issues, from the DAPL struggle at Standing Rock, to opposition to the Keystone-XL pipeline, to the current COVID-19 crisis.
“In the name of our ancestors and our future generations, we will be honored to participate in returning the wolf and ecological balance, and sharing our Traditional Ecological Knowledge to achieve this,” began Chairman Frazier. “The leaders of the Great Plains Tribal Chairman’s Association tribes were among the first to sign the Wolf Treaty. The Trump Administration has manipulated so-called endangered species issues in devious ways to undermine our treaties, rights, and sovereignty. With our friends and allies, we welcome the opportunity to show this administration how these matters should be conducted.”
Chairman Frazier, who also serves as Chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, has been one of the most-outspoken critics of President Trump and his administration’s policies in Indian Country.
“This is a highly significant development for indigenous people, particularly for the Northern Arapaho, Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, and Northern Cheyenne whom once called Colorado home,” said Lynnette Grey Bull, who just achieved a historic US House primary victory in Wyoming to become the Democratic Party’s candidate for US Congress (Wyoming’s at-large seat). “I come from a ranching family and so I understand some of those concerns about wolf reintroduction, but there are mitigation strategies that can be adopted, so this does not have to be a binary choice. The wolf, like the grizzly bear, is integral to our traditional culture.”
“The Wolf Treaty articulates the vision that Coloradans have for a future that respects the Earth and all of her creatures,” said Rob Edward of the RMWAF, a Colorado-based organization that has coordinated support for the wolf restoration initiative. “We look to GIC’s leadership and partnership in the months and years to come, fashioning a new vision for western Colorado’s wild places.”
Among the other prominent tribal leaders who have offered statements of support for wolf restoration in Colorado are GIC President, Tom Rodgers, former Hopi Chairman and Hopi Bear Clan leader, Ben Nuvamsa, and Blackfeet Sun Dance leader, Nolan Yellow Kidney. Nuvamsa and Yellow Kidney were among the tribal plaintiffs in the grizzly bear litigation.
Edward further welcomed the GIC as a coalition partner in the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project, a non-profit coalition dedicated to restoring wolves to Colorado.
The Global Indigenous Council is an international body for all First Nations, convened to meet the global challenges, crises, and legacy of colonial conquest.
The Rocky Mountain Wolf Action Fund is an issue committee established to ensure the success of a ballot initiative to reintroduce gray wolves to Colorado.
Complete statements from tribal leaders can be found here: https://www.globalindigenouscouncil.com/wolf-treaty
Rob Edward is President of the Rocky Mountain Wolf Action Fund.