"The treaty tribes of the Pacific Northwest were honored recently to host Larry EchoHawk on his first official visit as the assistant secretary for Indian Affairs.

We’ve been waiting for someone like Larry for a long time. With him in the Department of the Interior, we have a great opportunity to get things done.

Larry is a member of the Pawnee Nation. He’s the former elected attorney general of Idaho, so he’s from the Northwest. He knows what we’re facing up here and understands the issues that are important to us.

Larry’s been working outside Indian country for a number of years, teaching law at Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School. So, he came up here a few weeks ago, eager to learn more about what’s happening now in our lives as Indian people.

In addition to representatives from the treaty tribes in western Washington, the treaty tribes of the Columbia River system joined us to meet with Larry. Together we are the 24 treaty fishing tribes of the Pacific Northwest. We spent an entire day talking about the natural resources that mean so much to us. We shared our concerns that our treaty rights continue to be violated, that water rights continue to be disputed and that our salmon stocks continue to decline"

Get the Story:
Billy Frank Jr.: EchoHawk offers new direction (Indian Country Today 9/9)

Related Stories:
Billy Frank: Management key to salmon recovery (8/10)
NWIFC: EchoHawk makes first visit to Northwest (8/4)