U.S. Department of the Interior

  • Transcript:

    Hi, I'm Jennifer Greener, Refuge Manager here at the 573rd National Wildlife Refuge, the Southern Maryland Woodlands National Wildlife Refuge, and you're watching This Week at Interior!

    This Week at Interior

    (Drumming and singing)

    The Department of the Interior hosted the final White House Tribal Nations Summit of the Biden-Harris Administration this week. Secretary Haaland, the first Native American member of a Presidential Cabinet, and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland honored President Biden with a blanket ceremony for his historic efforts to advance progress for all Native Americans.

    It says Joe Biden, Champion for Indian County, 2021 to 2024.

    To all the Tribal Nations I say thank you and I mean it sincerely. Thank you for your partnership. Thank you for your trust in me. But most of all thank you for your friendship, and always believing as I do, that the possibilities of our nation are limitless.

    This is a President and an Administration that truly sees Indigenous people and has worked tirelessly to address the issues in Indian County that have long been underfunded or outright ignored.

    The highlight of this year's summit was the establishment of the Carlisle Indian Boarding School National Monument in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as the 432nd site in the National Park system. The move acknowledges the painful past of the forced assimilation of Native children through the implementation of federal Indian boarding school policies that ripped Indigenous children away from their homes and families in an attempt to eradicate their culture. This work has been one of the top priorities of the Department through Secretary Haaland’s Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative.

    As part of that initiative, Secretary Haaland announced new agreements with the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. The new agreements will preserve survivor stories gathered through the Department’s oral history project, and inform the public on histories relating to the boarding school system and its impacts on Indigenous children and their communities.

    The Departments of the Interior and Justice published new best practices to improve media coverage on the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous peoples and human trafficking. American Indian and Alaska Native people are at a disproportionate risk of experiencing violence, murder, or going missing and make up a significant portion of missing and murdered cases. The guidelines come in response to a key recommendation from the Not Invisible Act Commission.

    The Administration also announced the release of a 10-year National Plan on Native Language Revitalization, which outlines a comprehensive, government-wide strategy to support the revitalization, protection, preservation and reclamation of Native languages. The plan is a joint effort from the Departments of the Interior, Education and Health and Human Services — it charts a path to help address the U.S. government’s role in the loss of Native languages across the continental United States, Alaska and Hawaiʻi.

    In her remarks at the White House Tribal Nations Summit, the Secretary announced that 400 co-stewardship agreements have been signed by the Biden-Harris administration with Tribes, Alaska Native Corporations and consortiums. These agreements improve federal stewardship of public lands, waters and wildlife by strengthening the role of Tribal governments in federal land management.

    Secretary Haaland and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams traveled to Southern Maryland this week where they joined local partners to celebrate the establishment of Southern Maryland Woodlands National Wildlife Refuge as the 573rd and newest unit of the National Wildlife Refuge System. This marks the sixth addition to the Refuge System by Secretary Haaland.  

    Bureau of Indian Education Director Tony Dearman joined a celebration this week to break ground on a campus modernization project at Many Farms High School on the Navajo Nation in Arizona, funded by the Great American Outdoors Act. The project will provide more than $200 million to modernize and improve educational facilities for students in grades 9 through 12.

    U.S. Geological Survey scientists made over 800 presentations this week at the American Geophysical Union, a major gathering of Earth and environmental scientists. Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water and Science Annalise Blum discussed the connection between geoscience and national security, and water security. USGS Director David Applegate led townhalls on working for USGS and on national security.

    And our social media Picture of the Week, we're marking International Mountain Day this week with this majestic image of Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. Regal and timeless, mountains have a way of captivating our imagination, inspiring us to explore, learn, connect with nature and seek a peaceful refuge.

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    That's This Week at Interior!

     

    News and headlines from Interior, December 13, 2024