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Tribes Sign Agreement To Launch New Intertribal Council

Last week, the Riverton Ranger reported that councilors from both tribes on the Wind River Indian Reservation signed a memorandum of understanding to help them manage their shared programs.

It’s the first time they'll manage them together since the Northern Arapaho disbanded the joint business council back in 2014.

Since the Joint Business Council was dissolved three years ago, the Northern Arapaho, the Eastern Shoshone, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs have been wrangling in the courts over how to move forward. The new MOU is an attempt to resolve those conflicts.

It states that the new intertribal council is not an attempt to re-establish the former joint business council. Instead, it says that it will create a “new cooperative system” setting up five committees to manage programs related to “natural resources, transportation, the judiciary, education and solid waste.” 

Subcommittees within those categories will then make recommendations and provide information about how to proceed. The MOU also orders regular inter-tribal meetings with a majority of each tribe’s council present at those meetings, and it calls for the re-establishment of a financial office that would serve both tribes.

Melodie Edwards is the host and producer of WPM's award-winning podcast The Modern West. Her Ghost Town(ing) series looks at rural despair and resilience through the lens of her hometown of Walden, Colorado. She has been a radio reporter at WPM since 2013, covering topics from wildlife to Native American issues to agriculture.
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