Ranco featured in USA Today on Sacred Defense National Parks and Monuments Initiative
Darren Ranco, anthropology professor and chair of Native American Programs at the University of Maine, was featured in a USA Today article about the Sacred Defense National Parks and Monuments Initiative, an new effort from the Lakota People’s Law Project to compensate tribes connected to the various national parks and monuments. Ranco said Native Americans already occupy influential roles, including U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, a member of New Mexico’s Pueblo of Laguna Tribe, and National Park Service director Charles Sams, a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Northeast Oregon. “You not only have Indigenous people running the Department of the Interior and Park Service, but now there are opportunities for everyday people to participate in land justice,” he said.