Editorial: Idaho tribes set the record straight on federal lands

This week Idaho’s Indian tribes set the record straight on the fate of federal land in Idaho from their perspective.

“If Congress is to transfer title to any lands they should transfer them to their original owners — the Indian tribes,” Helo Hancock, legislative director of Coeur d’Alene Tribe, told the Legislature’s Federal Lands Interim Committee Monday.

Nathan Small, chairman of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, said transferring ownership to the state was the last thing tribes in Idaho would support. Conservation groups, led by the Idaho Conservation League, agree.

“Idaho’s national forests and public lands are priceless to the people of Idaho and Americans as a whole,” said Jonathan Oppenheimer, an activist with the Idaho Conservation League.

And the Americans who have been around Idaho the longest are not state legislators in Boise.