Update on Diné Nihi Kéyah Project: Toward a Navajo Vision for Land Use Featuring Josey Foo

Current land use rules on many Tribal reservations were created by the Department of the Interior for Federal public lands and involve systems of public leases and permits. These rules may be suitable for national parks that were designed for conservation and recreation but are inappropriately restrictive for tribal lands where communities live permanently and need more flexibility. The Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Guidance for Integrated Resource Management Planning in Indian Country (2001) provides a means for Federal regulations to be revised or waived when a tribe provides its vision for integrated land use through Community Land Use Plans (CLUPs) and an Integrated Resource Management Plan (IRMP). Prior attempts to produce CLUPs and an IRMP did not work because they were created by non-Navajo individuals and BIA consultants.

The Diné Nihi Kéyah Project is a grass-roots effort to empower the Navajo community to reach a vision for land use. This vision is informed by legal, historical, and customary knowledge and is led by retired Navajo Nation justices, judges, and land use planners and advocates. Josey Foo, executive director of Indian Country Grass Roots Support, will describe how the project is facilitating the type of envisioning that the BIA recommended when it said to “simulate stepping into a time machine and dialing it ahead 20 years” and to “identify fundamental values which will allow the quality of life and resource conditions in the vision to be achieved.” 

Please read the information at https://dinelanduse.org/ for additional background.

A request for approval of 1 hour of CLE credit in California is pending.