<
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/15/miccosukee-tribe-florida-wildlife-corridor-foundation>
"Almost two centuries ago, Native American tribe members sought the protection
of Florida’s Everglades during the Seminole wars as they hid from government
forces seeking to banish them to Indian territories that later became Oklahoma.
Now, as the Trump administration continues its wholesale slashing of federal
funding from conservation projects, the Miccosukee Tribe is stepping up to
fulfill what it sees as a “moral obligation” to return the favor.
The tribe is looking to buy and protect environmentally significant lands,
including some that once provided refuge, in a groundbreaking partnership
agreement with the Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation. The corridor is an
ambitious project to connect 18m acres (7.3m hectares) of state and privately
owned wilderness into a contiguous, safe habitat for scores of imperilled and
roaming species, including black bears, Key deer and Florida panthers.
Tribal officials say they will work with the foundation and other partners to
“explore the acquisition and stewardship” of land within the corridor
considered important to the tribe and its community.
“We have a constitutional duty to conserve our traditional homelands, the lands
and waters which protected and fed our tribe since time immemorial,” said
Talbert Cypress, chair of the Miccosukee Tribe headquartered on a
130-square-mile reservation west of Miami.
“[But] we’ve seen some sort of hesitancy a lot of times to commit to projects
because of the erratic nature of how the government is deciding to spend their
money or allocate money.”
The agreement, announced at a summit of corridor stakeholders in Orlando last
week, comes as a study by the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society (NAFWS)
found that 60% of federally recognized tribes have lost grants or other federal
funds totalling more than $56m since Donald Trump took office in January.
“These services are part of what we receive in lieu of all of the years of what
we gave up, our land, our resources and sometimes, unfortunately, our culture
and language,” Julie Thorstenson, executive director of the NAFWS, told the
Wildlife Society last month.
With government funding drying up, and the future of existing federal land
stewardship agreements uncertain because of Trump’s sustained onslaught on the
National Parks Service, Cypress said tribe leaders had re-evaluated its work
with other partners."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
