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Partnerships can leverage limited federal resources and provide important benefits to federal agencies in the identification, protection, and use of historic properties while enabling important educational and job training opportunities and the promotion of a diverse workforce. Partnerships continue to be utilized by multiple agencies as part of their identification, protection, and use of historic properties through cooperative survey research, field schools, site stewards, trades training, and tourism and interpretation efforts. Partnerships, such as with Tribes and NHOs, special-interest groups, nonprofit organizations, academic institutions, and museums can alleviate some budget constraints that might otherwise constrain such activities. Agencies also highlighted how different types of expertise, such as Indigenous Knowledge and that of descendant communities, have also informed their efforts. Agencies reported an increase in vacant positions that will be increasingly important to fill as federal infrastructure funding is used. Several also demonstrated how they are providing experiential learning opportunities to schools and volunteer groups and with internships and mentorship programs that, along with flexible hiring practices, contribute to increasing the historic preservation workforce. Learning skills from federal professionals helps build the workforce, ensures knowledge continuity, and allows agencies an opportunity to reach new audiences.
Active collaboration and timely involvement with Tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations in property management activities, climate preparedness, and infrastructure planning enhances outcomes and remains critically important. The federal government has a unique relationship with Tribes derived from the Constitution of the United States, treaties, Supreme Court decisions, and federal statutes. This relationship is deeply rooted in American history, dating to the earliest contact in which colonial governments addressed Tribes as sovereign nations. The ACHP acknowledges Tribes as sovereign nations with inherent powers of self- governance. The ACHP’s Office of Tribal and Indigenous Peoples leads the ACHP’s efforts to ensure the agency is appropriately carrying out its responsibilities to Tribes and Indigenous Peoples. The recent publication of the ACHP’s Policy Statement on Burial Sites, Human Remains, and Funerary Objects establishes a set of principles and rules that the ACHP encourages federal agencies to adopt as they carry out their day-to-day responsibilities under Section 106. This statement also establishes a set of standards and guidelines that federal and state agencies, local entities, Tribes, industry applicants, and other relevant entities should, at a minimum, seek to implement to provide burial sites, human remains, and funerary objects the consideration and protection they deserve. In addition, the ACHP is focusing on helping practitioners more fully understand Indigenous Knowledge and its role in the Section 106 process, and developing a Policy Statement on Indigenous Knowledge The progress reports agencies submitted show many examples of how they are improving their government-to-government consultation with Tribes and NHOs. They also include examples of agencies working collaboratively with Tribal partners in planning and identification efforts and co-management of historic and natural resources. The ACHP has also seen agencies partner with Tribes, with a focus on Tribal youth, in cultural resources surveys that assist the agencies in locating and protecting Tribally significant historic properties while providing job training in cultural resources management.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
» The ACHP should collaborate with NPS, Federal Preservation Officers, and other federal agencies to provide information and training for federal agency employees taking on historic preservation responsibilities and to provide relevant professional development opportunities for those already working in this area. » Federal agencies should explore how to use internship, apprenticeship, and other experiential learning opportunities to introduce students and emerging professionals to careers in the historic trades, historic preservation, and cultural resources management while also providing needed support for federal historic property stewardship activities. » Agencies should continue to identify opportunities to improve coordination and collaboration with State and Tribal Historic Preservation Offices, Tribes, and other consulting parties as key partners in carrying out NHPA responsibilities, including through direct assistance and compensation in accordance with existing ACHP guidance. » Federal agencies involved in implementation of the American Climate Corps should explore how the initiative could address cultural resources concerns and deferred maintenance and introduce volunteers to valuable job training skills, prioritizing effective education and job training for underrepresented groups and socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals, and streamlining paths to civil service.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
» Agencies should actively seek to incorporate Indigenous Knowledge in decision making regarding historic properties and make Tribal and NHO inclusion more explicit as a valuable source of information, consistent with Administration guidance. » Agencies should ensure all staff are aware of, and act in accordance with, government-wide and agency policies and directives regarding Tribal and NHO consultation and that staff receive recurring training in environmental and cultural resources/historic preservation responsibilities and in Tribal and NHO consultation.
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