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<br />00510 <br /> <br />INTRODUCTION <br /> <br />The Grand Canyon is a place of great religious and cultural importance for the <br />Indian tribes of the region. including the Havasupai Tribe. Hopi Tribe. Hualapai Tribe. <br />Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, Navajo Nation, San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, Shivwits <br />Band of the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, and Zuni Pueblo. (The Kaibab Paiute Tribe and <br />Shivwits Paiute Tribe participate in this Consultation Plan through the Southern Paiute <br />Consortium.) All of these Tribes possess a wealth of traditional knowledge about the <br />Grand Canyon and the Colorado River, knowledge derived over many generations. <br /> <br />The federal government has a unique relationship with Indian tribal governments: <br />the federal government supports the right of tribes to exercise self-government and has <br />obligations as a trustee for Indian lands and natural resources. The doctrine of the trust <br />responsibility must be taken into account when federal agencies take actions that affect <br />Indian trust lands and other natural resources, including actions that are subject to <br />generally applicable federal laws, such as the National Environmental Policy Act <br />(NEP A). In addition, tribes have rights under certain federal laws that were enacted to <br />protect historic places and other cultural resources and the graves of their ancestors. <br />including the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), Native American Graves <br />Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), and Archaeological Resources Protection <br />Act (ARPA). These federal laws apply to many places within the corridor of the <br />Colorado River. These federal statutes reflect the public interest in protecting such <br />places, but they also acknowledge that Indian tribes often regard such places as important <br />for reasons different from those of the general public - for Indian tribes, many of the <br />places protected by these statutes are sacred. lbis is acknowledged by the Bureau of <br />Reclamation in the Final Environmental Impact Statement on the Operation of Glen <br />Canyon Dam (March 1995) (herein "Final EIS" of "FE IS"): "The Colorado River, the <br />larger landscape in which it occurs. and the resources it supports are all considered sacred <br />by Native Americans." Final EIS at p. 141. <br /> <br />In addition to the federal statutes, the reservations of two tribes, the Hualapai <br />Tribe and the Navajo Nation, are bordered by the Colorado River within the Glen, Marble <br />and Grand canyons, and the reservation of the Havasupai Tribe is located on a side <br />canyon that can be accessed from the main corridor of the Colorado River. The <br />governmental authority of these tribes must be respected by all of the stakeholders in the <br />Glen Canyon Adaptive Management Program (AMP). lbis means that for activities that <br />occur within reservation boundaries, compliance with the requirements of federal law is <br />not enough - persons who seek to carry out activities within reservation boundaries must <br />also comply with any applicable tribal laws. As such, tribal authority within reservation <br />boundaries is much more than the right to be consulted, but rather the authority to <br />prohibit activities by withholding consent or to regulate such activities by granting <br />permission subject to certain conditions. <br />