oal and uranium mining on the Navajo reservation and mismanagement of these resources has destroyed large areas of land. Despite the efforts of the Council of Energy Resource Tribes to balance the use of natural resources, mining, oil and gas exploration scars thousands of acres of Indian lands. (Lewis, 2) Sportsmen and state governments largely debate Indian hunting and fishing rights. Off-reservation hunting and fishing is already limited. These regulations hit Native fishermen in the Northwest particularly hard .In the 1960s; Indian activists staged fish-ins to publicize the situation. Eventually the case was taken to court. In United States v. The State of Washington (1974), Judge George Bolt reaffirmed the rights of Northwest tribes to harvest fish under the provisions of the 1854 Treaty of medicine Creek without interference by the State of Washington. The Boldt Decision restored a measure of Indian control over their environment and natural resource use. (Lewis, 3) By 1900, whites actively competed with Indians for the scarce Western resource, water. In 1908, the Supreme Court ruled in Winters v. United States that the Indians reserved the priority water right for present and future use. Irrigation became widespread with the promise of Indian self-sufficiency, ...
