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?ragansett Tribe to Purchase Burial Site with FWS Grant Narragansett Tribal Historic Preservation Officer John Brown (left), FWS R5 Native American Liaison D.J. Monette (middle) and Narragansett Indian Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas (right) hold oversized check in the amount of $500,000. FWS photo: Greg Thompson. Last November, the Narragansett Indian Tribe and the Service's Northeast Region entered into an agreement in which the Service will grant the Tribe $500,000 for the acquisition of the nearly 60-acre Downing Salt Pond Partners property in Narragansett, Rhode Island. The property was the site of a pre-contact village and a traditional burial ground for the Tribe. Matthew Thomas, Chief Sachem and John Brown, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Tribe, and Richard 0. Bennett, Ph.D., Acting Regional Director for the Service in the Northeast, signed the grant agreement at a signing ceremony on November 13, 2003 at the Narragansett Indian Tribal Headquarters in Charlestown, RI. Acting Regional Director Richard Bennett presented Chief Sachem Thomas with a symbolic check. "This is truly a great day for the Narragansett Indian Tribe," said Thomas. "This land holds great historical significance for the Tribe, and the purchase will further our efforts to protect our legacy." "This grant agreement is a major milestone in our partnership with the Narragansett Indian Tribe toward conserving sites that are central to the Tribe's history," said Bennett. "It is our hope that the Tribe will succeed in purchasing the land, ultimately protecting these cultural resources, as well as valuable wetland habitat for wildlife along the shore of Point Judith Pond (known locally as the Great Salt Pond)." Mr. Bennett also acknowledged the Service's Regional Native American Liaison D.J. Monette for his work efforts in developing and negotiating the grant process with John Brown from the Tribe. Both Mr. Bennett and Chief Sachem Thomas acknowledged U.S. Senator Jack Reed's (D-RI) leadership in securing federal Land and Water Conservation Fund dollars that authorized the Service to grant the funds to the Narragansett Indian Tribe to acquire the property. Under the grant agreement, the Tribe would purchase the property directly from the current owner and would own the land outright. D.J. Monette, Northeast Region, Native American Liaison Photo Submissions for the News We'd like your help it an effort to maintain our hiah-quality publications-which depend on strong imagery. Because so many images are being submitted in a digital format, rather than as prints or slides, we can no longer control the quality of images on our end to the extent we have in the past. Therefore, we rely on you to follow some guidelines to ensure the level of quality that our readers have long enjoyed. A high-quality digital camera (preferably 4 megapixels or higher) will be able to take a print-quality photo as long as you use the highest resolution and the largest dimension setting. Settings will differ depending on the camera but you should be able to easily select the right ones- with high resolution sometimes heing referred to as "superfine. But v,,ithout the largest dimension selected, as well as resolution, the image may still be too poor to use. Submit digital images unedited and in a jpeg format. If you are not sure your digital camera is of high enough quality for printed publications, please submit slides or prints. We'll return them as soon as we can. We appreciate you spreading the word to your staff fr their cooperation in maintaining the quality that was intended in FWS publications.