The U.S. Department of the Interior has announced that it will speed up its tribal Land Buy-Back Program, adding 63 new locations between 2018-2021, bringing the number of locations planned to 105.
This program, which began in late 2013, has purchased almost 1.5 million acres from private owners for $740 million and transferred to tribal governments.
According to the Deputy Secretary Mike Connor, “The Buy-Back Program embodies the priorities set forth by the Obama Administration’s goal to build effective partnerships with American Indian communities, promote sustainable economic development and tribal culture, and protect tribal lands.”
He added, “In partnership with tribal governments, this Program is generating new opportunities to work more efficiently, stimulate community dialogue and facilitate land use planning, while ensuring that lands stay in trust for the benefit of tribal nations.”
Issues that need to be addressed during this process include fractionation, (i.e. the expanding number of private owners of formerly reservation lands), overlap between reservations, the number of owners agreeable to selling and cost and time efficiency.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell has said that the department needs to work with Congress to come up with a longer-term solution for dealing with fractionation because previously allocated funds will not be able to deal with consolidating all fractional interests.
This could require extending the Cobell Settlement that allocated money for the Buy-Back Program.
