Secretary Haaland Announces Interagency Effort to Protect and Increase Access to Indigenous Sacred Sites

U.S. Department of the Interior
November 16, 2021

Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland today announced a new interagency initiative to improve the protection of and access to Indigenous sacred sites through enhanced and improved interdepartmental coordination, collaboration and action. The announcement comes on the second day of the Biden-Harris administration’s first Tribal Nations Summit.

A new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), signed by eight agencies, will increase collaboration with Tribes to ensure stewardship and access to sites, and incorporate Traditional Ecological Knowledge into management, treatment, and protection procedures. Today’s announcement builds on an MOU originally executed in 2012.

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