What rights do Indian tribes have to natural resources?
In their treaties with the United States, Northwest tribes not only reserved land for themselves but also the right to determine use of that land and its resources. On reservations, tribes set land use codes and regulate hunting, fishing, grazing, mineral development, and water use. Tribal rights to resource use extend far beyond reservation boundaries. In the treaties, tribes reserved the rights to hunt, fish, gather roots and berries, and pasture livestock on non-reservation lands. Many places where tribes possess these rights are on ceded lands on the millions of acres they gave to the United States in exchange for reservations and other rights and guarantees embodied in the treaties. The tribes also retained rights to fish at “all usual and accustomed places” that lie outside the ceded areas. Resource rights, together with tribal sovereignty and jurisdiction, are the basis for Indian cultural and economic self-sufficiency.
