An excerpt from yesterday’s NYTs article (full article here):
Nearly 30 years ago, a group called the Custer Battlefield Preservation Committee began buying up land around the monument — some 3,300 acres in all — in an effort to stave off development. The group has since tried to donate the land, which it bought for $14 million that was raised through donations, to the Park Service.
But the service has said that unless Congress or the president changes the battlefield’s boundaries, it does not have the legal authority to accept the land.
Moreover, any land deal would need approval from the Crow tribe, which has considerable political influence in Montana and has resisted such a large land transfer.
The tribe cites a 1920 federal law, known as the Crow Act, which it says limits nontribal members to ownership of about 2,000 acres on the reservation, which is almost 2.3 million acres.
“We are trying to explain the advantages of adding on to the historical site right in the middle of their country, which would bring tourists — who need to eat, sleep and buy souvenirs — and produce jobs for Crow people,” said Harold G. Stanton, president of the Custer committee.
Mr. Stanton disputed the tribe’s interpretation of the Crow Act, noting that his group bought much of its land from white landowners.
The Crow chairman, Cedric Black Eagle, agreed that concerns about overcrowding and roads needed to be addressed. And he said the tribe might accept a transfer of up to 2,000 acres of land to the Park Service, as allowed under the Crow Act.
But Mr. Black Eagle said that any additional land the Custer group owned should go back to the tribe, not to the Park Service.
“The most significant part of the battlefield and the monument is that it happens to be on Crow land,” he said. “We want to make sure we are involved in the process so we don’t end up losing any of that land.”
Turtle Talk 