Lawmakers should give tribe control of conservation project

Legislative gamesmanship in 2015 derailed a worthy proposal from the White Earth Nation to protect more than 2,000 acres of pristine northern Minnesota forest and wild-rice habitat.

But the conservation project, which would open the privately held land to the public, is back again, and its fate hangs in the balance in the session’s waning days. Legislators should avoid repeating last year’s mistake — which raised troubling questions about biases against American Indians — and approve the project with White Earth at its helm.

http://www.startribune.com/lawmakers-should-give-tribe-control-of-conservation-project/379464821/