Geoforum 53 (2014) 31–40

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Geoforum

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate /geoforum

Native enclosures: Tribal national parks and the progressive politicsof environmental stewardship in Indian Country

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2014.02.0030016-7185/� 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

E-mail address: carroll@umn.edu

1 Native land trusts have grown in collaboration with progressive noentities like the Trust for Public Land (TPL), which contrasts greatly with theand practices of more ‘‘conservative’’ conservation groups like The Naturevancy and The Conservation Fund. See Middleton (2011, 7–33) for adiscussion.

Clint CarrollDepartment of American Indian Studies, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, 72 Pleasant Street SE, 19 Scott Hall, Minneapolis, MN 55455, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 12 June 2013Received in revised form 30 January 2014Available online 26 February 2014

Keywords:Native AmericanIndigenousEnclosureConservationParkTerritoriality

a b s t r a c t

This article discusses the recent proliferation of North American Indigenous conservation efforts in theform of tribal national parks. To varying degrees, tribal parks offer alternative perspectives to conserva-tion studies by accounting for land-based epistemologies and practices. They also raise pressingquestions: To what extent are tribal natural resource managers in North America assuming the role ofstate authorities in their ability to restrict citizen access to tribal lands? How do tribal conservation areasdiffer from state-sanctioned enclosures throughout the globe that often disenfranchise customary use bylocal peoples? In dialog with political–ecological studies of conservation enclosures, I argue thatIndigenous nations are transforming the concept of enclosure in their systemic reclamations of Indige-nous sovereignty and territory through environmental stewardship. The analysis is based on a surveyof tribal parks in the United States and Canada.

� 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

n-Indianpolicies

1. Introduction

Indigenous land-based struggles in North America have largelybeen stories of dispossession. In the United States, federal policiesof removal, reservation, and allotment served as systematic mech-anisms that divested Native peoples of their lands. The early U.S.conservation movement, marked by the creation of YellowstoneNational Park in 1872, was a part of this history of dispossession,and as historian Mark Spence writes, ‘‘national parks serve as amicrocosm for the history of conflict and misunderstanding thathas long characterized the unequal relations between the UnitedStates and native peoples’’ (1999, 8). Yet, despite this history, therehas been a recent proliferation of Indigenous conservation effortsin the form of tribal national parks in the U.S. and Canada. This arti-cle examines the Indigenous use and modification of this model ofconservation within a settler colonial context. I explore how tribalnational parks differ from common conceptions of conservationenclosures, and how they are part of larger systemic reclamationsof Indigenous sovereignty and territory through environmentalstewardship.

Recent works describe similar dynamics with regard to thedevelopment of tribal land trusts and cultural conservationeasements (Wood and Welcker, 2008; Middleton, 2011). Novelapproaches to conservation in Indian Country have entailed theuse of such legal mechanisms in order to regain access to former

tribal territories and to promote traditional sustainable practicesfor the cultural and spiritual health of Indigenous communities.In the hands of Indigenous communities, land trusts and culturalconservation easements have provided practical ways to reassertrights to traditional territories and in the process create meaning-ful and productive relationships with non-Indigenous landownersand conservation organizations.1

The creation of tribal national parks is related to this movementin its overall goals of conservation, but the trend is neverthelessunique in its political and territorial approach. Political ecologistRoderick Neumann identifies conservation and the formation ofnational parks as inextricably linked to ‘‘the establishment of themodern territorial state and the creation of a correspondingnational citizenry’’ (2004, 181). As such, Neumann’s work carriesimplications for Indigenous conservation initiatives that manifestthemselves in the form of tribal national parks, and can point tosome cautions when employing such models. At the same time, Itake the position that Indigenous political structures have theability to articulate alternative approaches to environmentalgovernance and thus present possibilities for deepening our under-standing of conservation enclosures and recognizing their utility insettler state (a.k.a. ‘‘First World’’) Indigenous contexts.

Conser-thorough

32 C. Carroll / Geoforum 53 (2014) 31–40

The article is part of my broader effort to merge the theories andapproaches of political ecology and Native American/Indigenousstudies in order to develop effective lenses through which to viewthe array of distinct and diverse environmental issues throughoutIndian Country. Political ecology and Native American studiesstand to gain from each other new contexts and meanings for therelationship between ‘‘the political’’ and ‘‘the environmental.’’ Onthe one hand, Native American studies benefits from political ecol-ogy by gaining new theoretical tools to address the challenges ofcontemporary Indigenous environmental governance. On the otherhand, political ecology benefits from Native American studiesthrough its critical analysis of the unique political histories ofNative American nations and their relationships to the U.S. settlerstate, and, as such, the scalar implications of tribal sovereignty forpolitical–ecological analyses.

I begin by situating the national park model within politicalecology, followed by a discussion of land and enclosure withinNative American studies. Next I briefly discuss cases from theUte Mountain Ute Tribe (Colorado), the Red Cliff Band of Ojibwe(Wisconsin), and the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations (BritishColumbia). I then draw lessons from each unique case in order toassess the creation of tribal parks through a combined lens ofpolitical ecology and Native American studies.

3 For foundational works on the history of U.S. federal Indian policy, see Deloria andLytle (1983), Prucha (1984), and Wilkins and Stark (2011).

4 Discussions on the ecological Indian stereotype (e.g., Krech, 1999) have tended to

2. Enclosures in perspective: Approaches from political ecology

Political ecologists have critically theorized conservation enclo-sures as instruments for state territorialization, resource privatiza-tion, and the institutional exclusion of ‘‘society’’ from ‘‘nature’’(Neumann, 1998; McCarthy, 2001; Neumann, 2004; Heynen andRobbins, 2005; Robbins and Luginbuhl, 2005; Corson, 2011; Kelly,2011; Malhi, 2011; Peluso and Lund, 2011; Grandia, 2012). AliceKelly (2011) shows how conservation enclosures, despite theirclaim to provide public benefits, function as violent acts of primi-tive accumulation through the exclusion of resident populationsand the commodification of recreation and biodiversity.2 NancyPeluso and Christian Lund analyze enclosure and its companion pro-cess, territorialization, as ‘‘practices that fix or consolidate forms ofaccess, claiming, and exclusion’’ (2011, 668). They write that territo-riality ‘‘produces and maintains power relations among governedenvironmental subjects and between subjects and authorities’’ (Kelly(2011)). These power relations create unequal opportunities and ben-efit flows for different groups and can eliminate the rights and deci-sion-making authority of earlier resource users. Their analysis ofterritorialization and enclosure as components of land control pointsto the cautions Native American nations must take when assumingstate forms and ‘‘claiming the power to govern territorially’’ (673).

The recent proliferation of tribal national parks in NorthAmerica has marked the growing prevalence and sophisticationof Native American conservation programs, and by extension,governmental structures that employ the state form of politicalorganization. These structures, alongside key legal victories, haveincreased the ability of tribal governments to control anddistribute access to tribal lands (Royster and Fausett, 1989; Tsosie,1996; Clow and Sutton, 2001; Nettheim et al., 2002; Fleder andRanco, 2004; Wilkinson, 2005). And yet, notwithstanding the

2 Karl Marx critically assessed acts of land expropriation in the name of ‘‘so-called’’primitive accumulation, which ‘‘forms the pre-history of capital, and the mode ofproduction corresponding to capital’’ (Marx, 1967 [1867], 875). Primitive accumu-lation was the theft of common lands, and it entailed ‘‘conquer[ing] the field forcapitalist agriculture, incorporat[ing] the soil into capital, and creat[ing] for the urbanindustries the necessary supplies of free and rightless proletarians’’ (895). For Marx,the act of ‘‘divorcing the peasant farmer from the means of production’’—in otherwords, the peasant’s relationship to the land—was the basis for his materialistperspective of history and an understanding of the origin and development ofcapitalism (Marx, 1967 [1867]).

tangible benefits to Native communities that increased land con-trol brings, including access to sacred sites, renewal of relation-ships to ancestral homelands, and revitalization of subsistence-based knowledge and practices (not to mention the historical sig-nificance of reclaiming stolen lands), Native American nations facedifficult questions about the nature of tribal conservation pro-grams. To what extent are tribal natural resource managers inNorth America assuming the role of state authorities in their abilityto restrict citizen access to tribal lands? How do tribal conservationareas differ from state-sanctioned enclosures throughout the globethat often disenfranchise customary use by local peoples? Theabove perspectives from political ecology provide a frameworkfor understanding the issues that arise around resource accesswhen ‘‘management’’ becomes a dominant policy paradigm. Nev-ertheless, Native Americans have long histories and ongoing expe-riences with enclosure via settler colonialism, and this carriesimportant implications for political ecology.

3. Paradigms of land and enclosure within native Americanstudies

The early periods of what is known as U.S. federal Indian policyare defined in terms of the specific type of dispossession theyentailed. While the Removal Era of the 1830s forcibly relocatedtribes hundreds and thousands of miles from their traditionalhomelands, the creation of reservations beginning in the 1860salso entailed numerous relocations via treaties and land cessions.The Allotment Era (1887–1934) broke up Indigenous systems ofcommunal land ownership and opened Native lands to speculatorsand the market.3 The early U.S. conservation movement, coincidingroughly with the establishment of Indian reservations, excluded Na-tive peoples from former hunting and gathering areas in the name ofwilderness preservation (Spence, 1999; Jacoby, 2001). For peopleswhose history has been punctuated by immense losses of land byway of colonial and capitalist forces, it is not surprising that the fieldof study dedicated to the historical and contemporary condition ofNative American nations has centered land and sovereignty as analyt-ical categories.

Of course, the concepts of land and sovereignty in NativeAmerican studies do more than merely describe territories andmethods of resource control. As Vine Deloria, Jr. writes in God IsRed, ‘‘American Indians hold their lands—places—as having thehighest possible meaning and all their statements are made withthis reference point in mind’’ (2003 [1973], 62–63). Puttingromantic stereotypes aside, a prevalent Indigenous view towardthe nonhuman world is one of respect and reciprocity (LaDuke,1994; Trosper, 1995; Tsosie, 1996; LaDuke, 1999; Cajete, 2000;see Robyn, 2002; Simpson, 2004; McGregor, 2005; Turner, 2005;Nadasdy, 2007; Nelson, 2008; Wildcat, 2009; Salmon, 2012).4 Thisperspective is couched in unique traditions and histories thatreinforce a spiritual connection to land and the various nonhumanentities that dwell on it. Thus land and sovereignty as analytical

mask the political issues at stake in Indigenous environmental activism and struggle(Willow, 2009). Other scholars have admirably addressed this debate, and I do not feelthe need to replicate their efforts. The most useful works have been those that de-center European conceptions of ecology when describing Indigenous environmentalpractices and politics (e.g., Nadasdy, 2005) and others that emphasize Indigenousfutures based in both tradition and the generation of new knowledges (e.g., McGregor,2005). This clears the air for talking about Indigenous contributions today that shouldnot be held suspect out of fear of cynical use of stereotypes (although Darren Ranco(2007) has shown that the ecological nobility discourse has become one way forNative communities to ensure their seat at the environmental decision-making table),but rather should be seen as sincere efforts to alleviate crises in global environmentalgovernance.

7 The creation of the park was not without controversy within the tribe. Chief

C. Carroll / Geoforum 53 (2014) 31–40 33

categories enable strategies for maintaining relationships to placeand nonhumans, and for perpetuating land-based knowledges andpractices as critical components of Native peoplehood (Holm et al.,2003). In this sense, federal policies like allotment, which undercuttribal sovereignty and sought to alienate and divide land among indi-viduals, were also legislative tools for the attempted assimilation ofNative peoples.

Scholars of Native American studies have critically analyzed fed-eral policies like allotment and conservation as settler colonial landpolicies, thus distinguishing them from analyses of enclosures else-where. As historian David Chang writes of the allotment policy,‘‘Merely applying this European notion [of enclosure] in the NorthAmerican context would risk obscuring a crucial factor in U.S.history: the fact that the United States is a settler colony, somethingreflected in its land policy’’ (2011, 108–109). Regarding the sover-eign status of Native American nations that is both encoded inand pre-dates the U.S. constitution and federal Indian law, Changstates, ‘‘Allotment legislation never directly addressed the politicalabsorption of Indian nations, but its very operation expanded thescope of federal authority at the expense of tribal sovereignty’’(111). Because allotment entailed subsuming tribal sovereignty intandem with tribal lands, Chang differentiates the form ofenclosure embodied in allotment as ‘‘a colonial political project’’(111, 117).5

This distinction is significant in light of recent work that has setout to define settler colonialism as a unique formation by high-lighting its ongoing and structural qualities. Most prominently,Patrick Wolfe writes, ‘‘settler colonies were (are) premised on theelimination of native societies. The split tensing reflects adeterminate feature of settler colonialism. The colonizers cometo stay—invasion is a structure, not an event’’ (1999, 2).6 Conjoininganalyses of settler colonialism as a continuous and structural forma-tion with parallel understandings of primitive accumulation as acontemporary and ongoing capitalistic process (e.g., Harvey, 2003),Nicholas Brown suggests that in their mutual constitution emergesa process called ‘‘settler accumulation’’ (2013). Arguing throughIndigenous critiques of Marx’s primitive accumulation, which stressthat the result of accumulation for Indigenous peoples was (and is)not proletarianization, but primarily dispossession (Coulthard, 2007;see also Barsh, 1988, 206–207), Brown asserts that locating ‘‘thelogic of settler accumulation. . .help[s] us to diagnose more preciselyhow settler-colonial structures are naturalized in the landscape andhow new modes of accumulation—or flexible conditions ofpossibility—exploit these embedded and enduring structures. . .’’(2013, 16). Equally important to understanding paradigms of landand enclosure in Native studies is the ultimate failure of all of theabove: settler colonialism and primitive accumulation are bothincomplete and fractured projects (Harvey, 2003; Simpson, 2011),and the allotment policy ‘‘failed to make Indians indistinguishablefrom other Americans or to obliterate the sovereignty of Nativenations’’ (Chang, 2011, 112; see also Stremlau, 2011).

Putting the fields of political ecology and Native American/Indigenous studies in conversation with each other provides criti-cal perspectives on methods of land control while acknowledgingthe imperatives of land and sovereignty to Native nations. Tribalparks have arisen in reaction to histories of dispossession andthe ongoing forces of settler colonialism. As such, tribal parksrepresent the reclamation of Indigenous space—a sovereign act ofreterritorialization in a settler colonial context. As Indigenousformations, they have the potential to differ dramatically frommainstream forms, similar to the potential of Indigenous statestructures to present alternatives to the global state community

5 Chang acknowledges and draws from Nancy Shoemaker’s (2004) originalcontribution to this distinction between English and U.S. colonial enclosure.

6 See also Veracini, 2010 and the Journal of Settler Colonialism, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2011).

(see Carroll, 2012). The degree to which they achieve this potentialvaries in their unique formations.

4. Tribal parks case studies

4.1. Ute Mountain Tribal Park (Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Towaoc,Colorado, United States)

The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe is comprised of the WeeminucheBand of the larger Ute Nation, and is one of the seven original Utebands that inhabited what are now the states of Colorado, Utah,and New Mexico. The Ute Mountain Reservation stretches across597,000 acres in southwestern Colorado, southeastern Utah, andnorthwestern New Mexico, and has two main communities—thetribal headquarters in Towaoc, Colorado, and a small communityin White Mesa, Utah. Together, these communities make up apopulation of about 2000 tribal members. The reservation landsin Colorado neighbor the Southern Ute Reservation, which is hometo the Mouache and Capote bands. Unlike the Ute Mountain Ute tri-bal lands in Utah, the reservation lands in Colorado and New Mexicowere never allotted; however, in 1911, the Ute Mountain Utes relin-quished to the federal government 14,520 acres of their reservationto create the Mesa Verde National Park, receiving 20,160 acres inreturn (Delaney, 1989, 81). Although Mesa Verde carved out a largeportion of the reservation that contained Anasazi ruins, adjacentlands still on the reservation held a significant amount of ruins thatthe tribe would later set aside as a tribal park (Delaney, 1989).

In the late 1960s, the last hereditary chief of the Ute MountainUtes, Chief Jack House, developed the idea for the Ute MountainTribal Park ‘‘to preserve the ruins for the future, and to share themwith others’’ (Akens, 1995 [1987], 15). The idea came during a timeof economic depression for the Ute Mountain Utes, who had begunto deplete tribal funds from a U.S. Court of Claims settlement in1959. Chief House hoped to generate tourism income by showcas-ing Anasazi ruins on tribal lands. In 1967, Chief House traveled toWashington, D.C. and successfully lifted the Wilderness Area statusfrom the 125,000 acres of proposed park lands (Fig. 1). Soon after,archeological crews began work to prepare the area for visitation.7

Today, the Ute Mountain Tribal Park hosts visitors from aroundthe world both at their visitor’s center and on tribally guided tours.Park regulations boldly state that no one is allowed in the parkwithout a Ute Tribal Park guide. The park director and staff provideinterpretations of Ute history, Ute pictographs, geological land for-mations, and ancestral Pueblo petroglyphs, artifacts and dwellings.The park seeks to provide ‘‘a low impact type of tourism [that] willprotect the natural resources, preserve the ruins and environment,yet give the visitor a quality experience while on the lands of theUte Mountain Ute Tribe’’ (Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park, 2013).To enable ruins stabilization, the Ute Mountain Tribe and the Col-orado Commission of Indian Affairs established a non-profit foun-dation that oversees their well being.

Despite the success of the park as a tourist attraction, the UteMountain Utes inhabit a relatively remote area. From the tribalwebsite:

The [Ute Mountain] tribal lands are on what’s known as the Col-orado Plateau, a high desert area with deep canyons carvedthrough the mesas. This is a harsh land and there are no citiesto provide services for the tribe. So the tribe must be self-suffi-cient by looking for other means of implementing progress and

House’s idea was opposed by many tribal members due to the ‘‘strong belief that nogood could come from disturbing the spirits of the Ancient Ones’’ (Akens, 1995[1987], 15). In 1976, five years after the creation of the park, Ute tribal memberscarried out ‘‘one final act of protest’’ by burning down Chief House’s abandoned home(he died in August 1971) (Akens, 1995 [1987], 17).

Fig. 1. Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park and Mesa Verde National Park. Map by MarkLindberg.

9 Clayoquot Sound has been the subject of much research in recent times, whichhas thrust the area onto the global stage of conservation studies. Bruce Braun’s book,The Intemperate Rainforest (2002) discussed Clayoquot Sound in the context of nature-

34 C. Carroll / Geoforum 53 (2014) 31–40

creating successful enterprises to serve the needs of the tribalmembers as well as create a healthy economy in which to live(Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park, 2013).

Although invoking neoliberal logics of ‘‘progress’’ and ‘‘enter-prise,’’ the Ute Mountain Utes are clearly aware of their structur-ally limited choices for economic development (see Ishiyama,2003). As such, the Ute Tribal Park serves as an alternative to thepresent oil and gas extraction that has driven the tribal economysince the 1950s (Delaney, 1989, 100–101).8 The Ute Tribal Casinoin Towaoc also brings in needed revenue, although again, its remote-ness limits its overall contribution to the tribal economy. In thislight, the Ute Tribal Park represents an initiative of tribal ‘‘ecotour-ism’’ that enables jobs (however few) for tribal members who wishto spend time learning and disseminating knowledge about theirland and its heritage.

4.2. Frog Bay Tribal National Park (Red Cliff Band of Lake SuperiorChippewa, Bayfield, Wisconsin, United States)

Patty Loew (Bad River Ojibwe) describes Madeline Island of theApostle Islands Chain as the ‘‘sacred center’’ for Wisconsin Ojibwebands (1997, 715). The importance of this area in northern Wiscon-sin to Ojibwe people lies in its identification as the final resting stopin the Ojibwe migration story, in which the people’s prophesy wasfulfilled by the discovery of manoomin, or ‘‘the food that grows onwater’’ (wild rice). Today, the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chip-pewa inhabit the area closest to Madeline Island on their reservationat the tip of the state; however, the current landownership withinthe reservation boundaries differs drastically from the 7321 acrearea negotiated with the U.S. government in the Treaty of 1854.Loew estimates that by 1929, 95% of Red Cliff tribal members lostor sold their lands to foreclosures as a result of the allotment policy’sforced land alienation combined with local economic depression(2001, 73). Additionally, unsustainable tribal logging practices haddecimated thousands of acres of tribal forests, leaving the land‘‘littered with slash piles that were vulnerable to fire’’ (72).

Only a few areas of the boreal forest in Wisconsin were sparedfrom the logging industry, and in 1980, David Johnson, a retiredprofessor of labor relations and economics at the University ofWisconsin-Madison, purchased at public auction 88.6 acres ofhealthy unlogged forestland along the coast of Lake Superior—

8 The tribe has also recently launched a local-scale solar energy project through theU.S. Department of Energy Tribal Energy Program (see: apps1.eere.energy.gov/tribalenergy/projects_detail.cfm/project_id=214).

encompassing the area known as Frog Bay (Lake SuperiorMagazine, 2012). Johnson never developed the land, and in 2011(then in his 19s), he wished to see it transferred to tribal owner-ship. Johnson approached the Bayfield Regional Conservancy,who then worked with the Red Cliff Band on securing a $488,000Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program grant from theNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to purchasethe Frog Bay tract at half of its appraised value. Johnson agreedto donate the rest of the land’s value under the condition that itbe encumbered by a conservation easement that prohibits any fu-ture development. The area was soon named Frog Bay Tribal Na-tional Park—marking the first of its kind in the United States—and opened to the public in August 2012 (Fig. 2).

Red Cliff lead fisheries technologist Bryan Bainbridge, who helpsoversee and manage the park, remarked, ‘‘As a sovereign nation,we decided to name it a national park to highlight how it will bepreserved and kept in its natural state’’ (Probst, 2012). Other tribalmembers commented on the tract’s cultural and spiritual value,and the importance of regaining access to lost tribal lands. Tribalnatural resource manager Chad Abel stated, ‘‘It’s unfortunate, buta lot of that shoreline isn’t in tribal ownership anymore. I thinkthat’s the overwhelming sentiment—‘We have access to theproperty again’’’ (McCann, 2012).

The Frog Bay conservation easement shows similarities to whathave been termed ‘‘cultural conservation easements,’’ whereinlandowners and conservation groups allow sustainable extractiveactivities by tribal members (see Middleton, 2011). In the case ofFrog Bay, the Bayfield Regional Conservancy holds the easement,but tribal members are allowed to use the park for cultural cere-monies and gathering plant materials for medicine and traditionalcrafts (McCann, 2012). The governance of the park entails a com-mittee of elders, natural resource professionals, tribal governmentrepresentatives, and conservancy staff (Lake Superior Magazine,2012). Red Cliff tribal officials and volunteers perform mainte-nance and enforcement of park rules, and amenities are limitedto a single self-contained vault toilet. A small parking area servesas the gateway to the park, and a rugged footpath winds its wayto the shore of Frog Bay itself. A modest metal box collects visitordonations that go directly to minimal maintenance.

4.3. Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Parks (Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations, VancouverIsland, British Columbia, Canada)

The Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations (formerly referred to as theClayoquot) are a confederation of formerly autonomous aboriginalNuu-chah-nulth groups, and are one of 15 Nuu-chah-nulth FirstNations in Canada. The Tla-o-qui-aht groups share claims to tradi-tional territory that encompasses the Haa’uukimun Lake system onthe west coast of Vancouver Island (Fig. 3) (Murray and King, 2012,387). Two separate reserves makeup the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nationcommunity—one on Opitsaht (Meares Island), and the other atEsowista, which is bordered by the Pacific Rim National Park. Reg-istered citizens of the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation today number 990people, with approximately one-third who live on the reserves(Murray and King, 2012). While once a remote region character-ized as ‘‘sleepy,’’ the nearest town of Tofino now boasts atourism-based economy that sees over one million tourists a year(390).9

making and the politics of indigeneity, and Magnusson and Shaw’s edited volume APolitical Space: Reading the Global through Clayoquot Sound (2003) has more recentlycontributed to the political-ecological study of the area. Murray and King (2012) haveworked closely with the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations on the design and implementa-tion of the Tribal Parks, and I rely heavily on their information and analysis herein.

Fig. 2. Red Cliff Reservation and Frog Bay Tribal National Park. Courtesy Bayfield Regional Conservancy.

Fig. 3. Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Parks. Reprinted with permission from the Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Parks Initiative (www.tribalparks.ca).

C. Carroll / Geoforum 53 (2014) 31–40 35

Efforts to establish a Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Park began in the1980s with the establishment of Meares Island Tribal Park. The cre-ation of the Meares Island Tribal Park came about in the context ofa British Columbia Supreme Court decision in which Meares Islandwas placed under an injunction for the clarification of aboriginal

rights and title (Murray and King, 2012). The court action was inreaction to protests and blockades by Tla-o-qui-aht members andenvironmental groups over logging operations and plans. The man-ifestation of tribal environmental activism in the Meares Island Tri-bal Park set the stage for the later development of the larger

10 For in-depth discussions of scale as it pertains to human geography, see Smith(1992) and Swyngedouw (1997).

11 See also the special issues of Environment and Planning A (Volume 37, 2005) andGeoforum (Volume 37, 2006).

12 An exception to this is Emery and Pierce’s (2005) broad survey of subsistence inU.S. forests, which notably includes a discussion of Native Hawaiian harvesting rightsand American Indian treaty rights, and ultimately urges further study. Also notable,while not explicitly engaging political ecology as a field, is work that analyzesenvironmental justice and activism in Indian Country, such as Clark (2002), Krakoff(2002), Ishiyama (2003), Ranco (2008), Willow (2009), Endres (2012), and Holifield(2012). Gedicks (1993) is an example of work on Native environmental politics, butprovides no implications for the field of political ecology.

36 C. Carroll / Geoforum 53 (2014) 31–40

Haa’uukimun Tribal Park in 2008. The Haa’uukimun Tribal Park isunique in its non-uniform pattern of land tenure. Although entirelywithin Tla-o-qui-aht traditional territory, the park boundariesencompass Crown land, provincial park land, private land, amongothers, leading Murray and King to describe Tla-o-qui-aht conser-vation efforts as ‘‘a projection of sovereignty over contested ter-rain’’ (389).

Other qualities of the Haa’uukimun Tribal Park make it unique,specifically in the realm of governance. Based on their close workwith the Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Parks initiative, Murray and Kingidentify four elements that define the Haa’uukimun Tribal Park’sunique governance structure that attempts to meld mainstreamconservation strategies with Tla-o-qui-aht traditional values andknowledge: (1) the park employs zoning and a land-use plan asconservation tools, which are informed by (2) guiding principlesthat express traditional Tla-o-qui-aht values toward environmen-tal stewardship. (3) The Tribal Parks initiative actively buildslinkages between its governing body and the Tla-o-qui-aht FirstNations formal governing structure, as well as (4) between it andoutside (provincial, non-profit) governmental and conservationactors (390). These elements, Murray and King write, constitute‘‘a blend of both ‘old’ and ‘new’ elements in the governance systemfor Tribal Parks’’ (392).

The Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Park initiative is aware of the implica-tions of the unique tribal park formation in the context of conser-vation models elsewhere. The Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Park websitestates:

A park is usually a protected area which excludes most humanactivities apart from recreation. A tribal park integrates humanactivities while caring for the ecosystem at the same time – thiswas done successfully by our ancestors, resulting in superiorecological integrity of the whole landscape in the territory.

To pursue tribal parks actively today means that we must lookto uses which avoid harming and instead benefit the land andwater. For example, clear-cut logging and industrial miningwould be prohibited, while low-impact eco-tourism, habitatrestoration, and carefully-controlled run-of-river energy gener-ation would be allowed. To be successful, tribal parks will needto manage existing land uses and interests, and provide a com-prehensive vision for present and future generations (http://www.tribalparks.ca/).

This perspective of conservation is manifested in the two dis-tinct zones of the Haa’uukimun Tribal Park and the land-use planthat governs their character. One zone, named qwa siin hap (‘‘leaveas it was’’) is governed by more strict conservation standards, andactivities are restricted to research, education, and low-impactecocultural tourism. The lands defined by this zone have sacredmeaning to the Tla-o-qui-aht community, as they are the people’splace of origin. The second and larger zone, named uuya thluk nish(‘‘we take care’’) is governed by less stringent standards, and alsoincludes a more complex patchwork of landownership. As such, anumber of activities are allowed within the zone, including:recreational tourism, seasonal habitation, small-scale harvestingand extraction activities, and low-impact forestry, among others(Murray and King, 2012, 390).

5. Discussion: Toward a synthetic framework for politicalecology and native American studies

The above cases represent merely a sample of current tribalconservation models. One could also look to the Confederated Sal-ish and Kootenai Tribes’ long-standing Mission Mountain TribalWilderness (Flathead Reservation, Montana) and the NavajoNation’s Parks and Recreation Department (Window Rock, Arizona)

for additional examples and unique formations. What binds themall together, and what makes the concept of ‘‘tribal park’’ unique,is not only their clear ‘‘projection of sovereignty’’ (Murray andKing, 2012, 389), but their varying degrees of exhibition of triballands, as demonstrated by their varying emphasis on tourism.Another factor is the extent to which each Indigenous nation hasreacquired land (or projected their sovereignty over it) versus de-clared existing tribal domains as conservation areas. Regardless oftheir variances, tribal parks carve out Indigenous space and reassertstewardship roles in ways that both mirror and defy the history ofNorth American conservation. These cases show—at different stagesof development—sovereign acts of reterritorialization in the form ofconservation enclosure that complicate and enhance political–ecological studies.

Indigenous nations within settler states exist among a nestedset of geographical scales, and in the United States, these scalesconsist of the federal, tribal, and state (Silvern, 1999, 645).10 NativeAmericans maintain ‘‘nation-to-nation’’ relationships with the fed-eral government based upon treaties that express Indigenous sover-eignties—sovereignties that pre-date the formation of the UnitedStates (see Wilkins and Stark, 2011). However, as Lumbee scholarDavid Wilkins has noted, the peculiar nature of this relationship liesin the fact that Native American nations are ‘‘recognized sovereignswith rights that can be systematically quashed’’ (1993, 391). Theability of Native American nations to practice their sovereignty hasbeen eroded through acts of congress, treaty cessions, and the numer-ous cases that make up federal Indian law today (Wilkins and Loma-waima, 2001). But despite this erosion, the political relationship thatNative American nations uphold with the U.S. settler state has affor-ded them a unique semi-sovereign status that distinguishes themfrom many other Indigenous peoples throughout the globe.

While recent works have emphasized the need for ‘‘First World’’political ecology (McCarthy, 2002; Robbins, 2002; Walker, 2003),11

few have engaged explicitly with Indigenous nations within thiscontext. Many of those that do nonetheless have not fully addressedthe implications this has for the field (see Braun, 2002; Wainwrightand Robertson, 2003; Natcher et al., 2004). Despite a call for land andproperty questions to embark on a ‘‘long intellectual journey home[to North America]’’ (Fortmann, 1996, 545), political ecology haslargely passed over Indian Country, which arguably comprises thevery foundation of land and property questions in settler colonialsocieties like Canada and the United States.12

Beth Rose Middleton has initiated this important conversation,stemming from her work with the Mountain Maidu in NorthernCalifornia (Middleton, 2010). She focuses on how regaining accessto traditional territories and resources contributes to North Amer-ican indigenous community health, and how this fundamentallydecolonial project has addressed cases of intergenerational traumaamong the Mountain Maidu community. Middleton thus workstoward a ‘‘political ecology of healing’’ that centers decolonizationand indigenous self-determination. I build upon her valuable workand argue that the key concepts of land and sovereignty withinNative American studies have further theoretical implications forFirst World political-ecological inquiry. Fully accounting for

C. Carroll / Geoforum 53 (2014) 31–40 37

pervasive settler colonial structures — Middleton frames this interms of enduring coloniality (2010, 2) — and the ongoing occupa-tion of indigenous lands would more closely align First Worldpolitical ecology with the field’s roots in social justice. And whilethe ways in which American Indian political leaders wield sover-eignty are not exempt from critique, I assert that supporting theunderlying goals of indigenous self-determination (often achievedvia sovereignty claims) is a process that benefits everyone.

To be clear, I do not presume that political ecologists have notaddressed how Indigenous nations complicate and upset settlernarratives of ‘‘nation’’ and settler sovereignty itself (see, e.g., Braun,1997; Anderson, 2000). But, as I have gathered, such works havenot discussed what this means for political–ecological analyses ofterritoriality, the state, and environmental governance—in otherwords, how the analytical categories of land and sovereignty in Na-tive American studies inform the critical approaches of politicalecology. As I contend in this essay, political ecology offers criticallenses for assessing Indigenous formations of environmentalgovernance; conversely, such formations (like tribal parks) offernew ways of looking at the common approaches of politicalecology.

Thus, the analytical categories of land and sovereignty withinNative American studies expand political–ecological approachesto territoriality, as it occurs under very different circumstances.The concept of tribal sovereignty, the existence of tribalgovernments that represent such sovereignty, and the dynamicland-based practices and traditions that Native Americansmaintain, position Native American territorial claims to space—often invoked in terms of homelands or land bases—as cornerstonesof Native American political and cultural continuance (seeWilkinson, 1987; Deloria, 2007 [1970]). Additionally, NativeAmericans are both authorities with regard to their tribal landsand citizens (however limited that authority may be) and subjectsof the settler state at the same time. This stands in contrast to thestandard focus of political ecology in developing countries, where-in singular states comprise the operational governmental authorityto which their subjects must react.

The multi-scalar dynamic of settler-state Indigenous politicalsubjectivity informs the nuanced approaches to tribal environmen-tal governance that exist throughout Indian Country today. As Iassert elsewhere (Carroll, forthcoming), North American Indige-nous environmental governance operates within a continuum ofresource-based and relationship-based practices. This is to say thatwhile many tribes have developed sophisticated bureaucratic pro-grams to reassert control over natural resources, the maintenanceof these programs often entails reconciling resource control withtraditional teachings that seek to uphold unique tribal relation-ships with the land and all life. Viewing tribal parks through theresources—relationships continuum illuminates how Indigenousnations are effectively employing political structures that establishcontrol over lands in order to uphold their relationships with them.

The resources—relationships continuum also presents a criticalalternative to existing assessments of Native enclosures and envi-ronmental sovereignty. Thom Kuehls (2003) has highlighted thepitfalls of sovereignty and territoriality in the context of Indige-nous struggles over resource control and regulation, specificallywriting about the Tla-o-qui-aht tribal parks in British Columbia.For Kuehls, ‘‘the environmental circumstances of sovereignty,’’ orthe notion that ‘‘sovereignty is bound up with a particular orienta-tion to environment . . . that requires the land to be used in partic-ular ways,’’ restricts Indigenous efforts to reclaim ancestralhomelands because, within this discourse, only certain claims arelegitimated (181). In his essay on the controversy surroundingthe declaration of Meares Island as a tribal park, Kuehls describeshow the Canadian state privileged Lockean concepts of what itmeans to ‘‘use’’ the land, in addition to denying its own settler

coloniality by refusing to acknowledge the Tla-o-qui-aht FirstNations’ reassertion of sovereignty over stolen lands.

Kuehls’s assessment is a salient observation, and an informativelook at sovereignty’s European philosophical baggage. Neverthe-less, it assumes the absence of the resources—relationships contin-uum in which Indigenous environmental governance operates. As Icontend, Indian Country is no stranger to the discourses of sover-eignty and resources, and the establishment of tribal parks repre-sents how Indigenous nations have mastered this language inorder to protect Indigenous homelands and nurture traditionalknowledges and practices. Within the current context of settlercolonialism, in which its ‘‘specific, irreducible element’’ is settler-state territoriality and the ‘‘elimination of the native’’ (Wolfe,2006, 388), resource-based approaches to environmental gover-nance are necessary in order for Native American nations to takecontrol over tribal lands that have been stolen and/or severely mis-managed by settler state governments and corporations. Tribalparks, and by extension, Indigenous state governmental structures,effectively negotiate the resources—relationships continuum, andin doing so, advance decolonial agendas.

For the Ute Mountain Utes, the tribal park model both serves asan expression of sovereignty and a tourism enterprise. The park’sexhibition of archeological sites implicitly protects tribal lands byenshrining the value of tribal cultural resources and thus ensuringtheir preservation. And while the park commodifies nature, it doesso on the terms of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, most significantlythrough the requirement of a tribal guide for park entry. In thisway, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe welcomes outsiders to their landas visitors, thus marking the experience as a tour of sovereignIndigenous space. The combined elements of the park’s tourismmodel and its explicit territorial stance unsettle the U.S. nationalpark system’s typical erasure of contemporary Indigenous landclaims. Simply put, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park remindsAmerican citizens and other guests that they are on Indian land.

The story of Frog Bay Tribal National Park speaks to Indigenous-settler collaboration through the acknowledgment of tribal pri-macy and sovereignty. Professor David Johnson’s identification ofthe Red Cliff Band as the rightful owner of the land and as a partnerin its conservation demonstrates how decolonization need not bean adversarial process, but can arise out of meaningful relation-ships of mutual respect. And although the park is encumbered byan easement that entails a waiver of sovereign immunity on thepart of the Red Cliff Band, the conservation of the Frog Bay tractin perpetuity works toward tribal goals of land reacquisition. Theformal declaration of Frog Bay as a Tribal National Park signifieshow Red Cliff citizens view this accomplishment as an act ofasserting tribal sovereignty to re-establish relationships with theland and nonhumans.

Both the Frog Bay and Ute Mountain cases demonstrate theintricate web of settler colonial relations within which Nativenations operate, as seen in the complexity of funding and manage-ment arrangements for each park. In the Frog Bay case, a grantfrom the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—a fed-eral agency—helped procure the land, and in the Ute Mountaincase, a non-profit group created by the Colorado Commission ofIndian Affairs ensured an additional level of protection for theruins. This involvement of U.S. state and federal agencies in thecreation and maintenance of these tribal parks speaks to whatOsage scholar Jean Dennison describes as ‘‘colonial entanglement’’(2012, 6), which can, on the one hand, inhibit tribal self-determina-tion and, on the other, provide positive changes when allies andpolicies align with tribal goals—in this case, conservation.

On a global scale, North American tribal parks exhibit importantdifferences that highlight the distinctive political status of NativeAmerican/First Nations polities. The Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Parksand the Frog Bay Tribal National Park allow extractive activities

38 C. Carroll / Geoforum 53 (2014) 31–40

by tribal citizens, and this element juxtaposes their efforts withthose of extractive reserves throughout the world (see, e.g., Peluso,1992; Brown and Rosendo, 2000; Sundberg, 2003). However, thegovernance of the Tla-o-qui-aht and Frog Bay Tribal Parks by tribalgovernments, tribal resource managers, and tribal elders indicateshow they differ from other extractive reserves that have some-times excluded Indigenous peoples from decision-makingprocesses. Tribal ownership and control of the parks renders thesecases unique from other extractive reserves, which are oftenplagued by egregious abuses of power that ultimately work againstIndigenous rights, as Juanita Sundberg (2003) has shown withregard to the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala.

Of all the cases presented, the Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Parks mostdirectly challenge settler colonial structures of land ownershipand geographical scale because of their ‘‘projection of sovereigntyover contested terrain’’ (Murray and King, 2012, 389). They alsopresent the most complex conservation model through their landuse plan that identifies multiple park zones and declares differenttypes of governance within each one. Despite these qualities, Mur-ray and King nevertheless identify an issue that vexes this initia-tive and has implications for tribal parks elsewhere. They write,

Tribal Parks seem likely to face a challenging tension betweenmaintaining the sociocultural fit of their unique governancesystem while establishing linkages with other powerful actorswith overlapping—and sometimes divergent—interests in thearea. Indeed, one of the greatest challenges for many FirstNations governance systems is to rebuild institutions forresource and common property management that reflect tradi-tional values rather than succumb to the pressures of aligningtheir institutions with national and international regimes basedupon knowledge systems of the dominant culture (393–394).

The negotiation between employing dominant structures inorder to protect tribal interests and staying true to traditionalvalues of governance has been described elsewhere in numerouscases as the ‘‘Weberian dilemma’’ (Niezen, 2003), ‘‘the problemof difference’’ (Ranco and Suagee, 2007), and the ‘‘double bind’’of Indigenous governance (Ross et al., 2011). Yet I find that, whileeach assessment is useful in identifying the differences betweenIndigenous and Western approaches to governance, their conclu-sions assume a zero-sum game—a trade-off—that must take placein order for Indigenous nations to move forward. Viewing this sit-uation through the resources—relationships continuum, I arguethat Indigenous approaches to this situation often entail more ofa balancing act that leads to the production of spaces where envi-ronmental governance and management takes place on Indigenousterms and in Indigenous ways, however complex and multifacetedthey may be. Producing such spaces involves fashioning modes ofenvironmental governance that are more in line with Indigenoustraditional values and perspectives toward the nonhuman worldwhile upholding the political structures that support and enablethis process.

As I state at the beginning of this article, political–ecologicalanalyses can help address the difficult questions that arise out ofthis balancing act. For example, to what extent do tribal nationalparks reinforce artificial separations between humans and nonhu-man nature, and thus alter traditional relationships? And to whatextent do they replicate state practices of land control and regula-tion that may eventually infringe on tribal citizens’ access toresources? As ‘‘islands’’ of conservation, tribal parks may reinforceIndigenous resource access today; but, by nature of their design,they may one day restrict resource access, for example, ininstances of resource scarcity or political strife. Indigenous nationsshould proceed with caution with regard to the baggage thatcomes with these models of conservation. In other words, taking

seriously political–ecological perspectives involves tribal leadersand scholars of Native American studies tempering the promotionof tribal sovereignty with critical insights from theories of landcontrol and resource access (see Ribot and Peluso, 2003).

Conversely, political ecologists gain new insights into conserva-tion enclosures as wielded by Indigenous nations that draw ondominant forms but can articulate different epistemologicalfoundations toward the nonhuman world. In this light, tribal parksare not really enclosures at all, but they are nevertheless couchedin the model of conservation enclosures. A sovereignty-based polit-ical–ecological approach to Indigenous environmental issueswould take as its analytical center the ability of Indigenous nationsto assert sovereignty over their lands and the extent to which thisenables the perpetuation of unique ecological knowledges andpractices. Overall, viewing tribal parks through the combined lensof political ecology and Native American studies expands ourunderstanding of conservation enclosures and opens updiscussions of new and unique formations.

6. Conclusion

Radical ecologist Mick Smith (2011) launches a critique of sov-ereignty based on the inability of the concept to account for thevoices of the nonhuman world. This actually mirrors in some waysthe critique of sovereignty posed by prominent Indigenous gover-nance scholars (see Alfred, 1999). When wielded without abandon,environmental sovereignty is a dangerous concept, but in the caseof Indigenous nations in North America, critiques of the concept asyet do not adequately address the many contexts in whichsovereignty is being employed, and thus the various forms andmeanings that it assumes for different Indigenous nations (seeBarker, 2005). The need to maintain land-based practices as criticalcomponents of tribal identities continues to make the topic of landreacquisition and consolidation central to the study Indigenousenvironmental issues, and, despite its conceptual flaws, Indigenoussovereignty is a critical tool in this process.

Putting critiques of environmental sovereignty in the context ofNative American land struggles challenges them by reversing theplaying field, so to speak. Indigenous territoriality assumes animperative of reclaiming space in settler colonial contexts. Indige-nous territoriality, then, is a counter-reaction to settler colonialterritorialization, as it enables the perpetuation of land-based prac-tices and beliefs that are considered central to many Indigenousworldviews. Thus, tribal initiatives to reclaim stolen lands arenot solely political projects of regaining sovereign space, butmeans for healing intergenerational trauma that was caused byforced severance from the land (see Middleton, 2010).

The degree to which tribal national parks reproduce the tenden-cies of Euro-American environmentalism to artificially separatesociety and nature (thus turning lived landscapes into commodi-fied ones), and conversely, the degree to which they accommodatehuman activity and resource use within alternative visions of con-servation, is a spectrum on which each Indigenous nation will haveto negotiate its place. However, in this article, I have hoped to high-light how tribal parks, in drawing upon both mainstream conserva-tion models and traditional Indigenous teachings, carve out criticalspaces in which to foster the perpetuation of Indigenous land-based practices, and, in turn, offer unique contributions to NorthAmerican environmentalism.

Acknowledgements

I am an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Sincere thanksto the Office of Equity and Diversity at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities for providing me with a yearlong post-doctoral

C. Carroll / Geoforum 53 (2014) 31–40 39

appointment, during which time I was able to conduct researchand think through the arguments herein. I also thank the membersof the American Indian Studies Workshop at the University ofMinnesota for providing an excellent venue in which to discuss thispaper, and Mark Lindberg for his help with the Ute Mountain TribalPark map. Any and all errors or omissions, however, are my own.Lastly, and most importantly, I thank my family for their enduringlove and support. Wado.

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