LAST DECEMBER, in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Chuck Sams (Umatilla) made history when he shook hands with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) and became the first Native person to lead the National Park Service. He is also the agency’s first permanent director since 2017. Sams, who is Cayuse and Walla Walla, is enrolled with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation — a true Native Oregonian. HCN sat down with Sams to hear about his approach to his position.
This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Last year, Congress met with tribes to discuss co-management of federal lands. Now tribal comanagement is happening in Bears Ears National Monument. How do tribal nations, the National Park Service and the public benefit from co-management?
Tribes benefit because they’re exercising either their treaty rights or pre-existing Indigenous rights that they’ve always had, managing these lands for thousands of years. But more importantly, it is the recognition by the federal government, through Secretarial Order 3403, that we have a trust responsibility
