Tribal participation and Indigenous knowledge to be recognized by MOU

PACTOLA – A quick online search of Pactola Reservoir or Pactola Lake displays pages filled with stories and details about the town of Pactola that used to exist, and still does except it’s submerged under the lake that was created by Pactola Dam. The Dam was part of the Pick-Sloan Missouri River Basin Program. Constructed in 1952-56, the Dam was to supply water, irrigation and recreation to Rapid City but also to control flooding. The name Pactola is of Turkish origin.

Like many places in South Dakota, there is little presence of Native Americans whether you are at the Pactola Visitor Center or searching for information regarding the last inhabitants of the area. There is a Native American display at the Visitors Center along with settler and mining history. If you didn’t visit the Center, you might not know Native Americans existed and still exist today.

That is expected to change as the U.S. Forest Service and five Tribal Nations attended an official signing ceremony held on June 6 at Pactola, to provide interpretive services at the Visitors Center. The Participating Nations and the Forest Service had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) back in December. The Participating Nations include the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Oglala Sioux Tribe, Rosebud Sioux Tribe and Crow Creek Sioux Tribe.

Conservation and good stewardship are values of the Oceti Sakowin, the Lakota name for the Sioux Tribe. Protecting the water is a priority for the Lakota because it is not only essential to life but water, like air and land, is considered a relative.

The area in which Pactola sits is called a watershed, which is an area of land that drains or “sheds” water into a specific waterbody. Every body of water has a watershed. Watersheds drain rainfall and snowmelt into streams and rivers. The hills and valleys that you see are a part of the watershed. Rapid Creek Watershed Action says that the Rapid Creek watershed includes important Lakota cultural sites but it’s also important because it provides water to a vast portion of West River, South Dakota, including Rapid City, Ellsworth Air Forse Base as well as Tribal lands, smaller communities and agriculture along the creek as it flows to the Cheyenne and Missouri Rivers.

The MOU is an effort to fulfil Joint Secretarial Order 3403 to work with Native nations to share land and water stewardship under control of the federal government. President Joe Biden recognized the importance of increasing Tribal participation in the management and co-stewardship of federal lands and waters that are significant to Tribal communities.

Because of that, Biden had committed to an all-of-government approach to co-stewardship with Tribal nations, which included incorporating Indigenous Knowledge into the Department of Interior’s work. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said that by acknowledging Tribes as partners in co-stewardship “every American will benefit from strengthened management of our federal land and resources.” Haaland said that Indigenous Knowledge guides the work of protecting public lands and waters. She said this is a new chapter for the Department. Although DOI had at times included Indigenous Knowledge, the agency’s manual will formalize Indigenous Knowledge as a foundational piece of DOI’s work. She said it’s an important system that can not only contribute to the well-being of Natives and non-Natives but also provides a collective understanding of the natural world.

The Joint Secretarial order was signed in 2021 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Department of Interior (DOI) committing to the co-stewardship including written agreements with Tribal nations. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) reported on its website that USDA and DOI had delivered on their commitment. The Pactola MOU is one of more than 20 new co-stewardship agreements signed by the USDA Forest Service and DOI to further co-stewardship goals, with another 60 agreements under various stages of review.

The visitor center will be the named the Pactola/He Sapa Visitor Center. According to the Forest Service the MOU documents the mutual intent of the Participating Nations and the U.S. Forest Service to “maximize opportunities to achieve shared goals through co-stewardship of the Pactola/He Sápa Visitor Center.”

Participating Nations will have a voice in interpretation, especially Lakota and Dakota elders. This will help current and future generations of Lakota and Dakota to connect with their identity by understanding their origins through stories, traditions and practices which it is hoped will be shared at the new Pactola/He Sapa Visitor Center.

The center is expected to be redesigned. The project will be implemented in phases, with the first phase starting this year and continuing into outyears. An outyear is the fiscal year after the year covered in the budget.

Chairman of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe Peter Lengkeek said that the Lakota are going to be here “not matter what. Before these roads, these high lines, all this was here, there stood a teepee here and when all of this is gone, there is going to be a teepee here again.”

Not only is it a great opportunity for the Lakota to tell their story, but it’s the chance for so many non-Natives to learn about this shared history. The Forest Service says that the average annual visitor count is about 40,000 people.

If you go, be aware that there is construction happening at Highway 44 and the junction where a portion of Highway 385 is closed. You will instead have to go to Highway 16 and then to Sheridan Lake Road where you can still access Lake Pactola and the Visitors Center from 385 South.

(Contact Marnie Cook at cookm8715@gmail.com)

The post Tribal participation and Indigenous knowledge to be recognized by MOU first appeared on Native Sun News Today.

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