Tribal leaders attend the treaty signing on the Blackfeet Nation in Montana. Photo from Inter-Tribal Buffalo Council / Twitter

A dozen tribes and First Nations in the U.S. and Canada signed a historic treaty on Tuesday to protect and restore bison to their territories.

The Buffalo Treaty was signed on the Blackfeet Nation in Montana. Tribal leaders said they wanted to stress the importance of bison in their respective cultures.

Tribal leaders' signatures on the Buffalo Treaty. Photo from Inter-Tribal Buffalo Council / Twitter

“It’s a very grassroots effort,” Leroy Little Bear, an elder from the Blood Tribe in Alberta, Canada, told The Calgary Herald. “Elders were feeling like our younger generation were forgetting a lot of their culture, language and so on.

Together, the tribes control about 6 million acres in the Northern Plains. They will work together to reintroduce bison to their lands.

“I can’t say how many years. It’s going to be a while and of course there’s such big resistance in Montana against buffalo,” Ervin Carlson, the president of the InterTribal Buffalo Council, told the Associated Press. “But within our territory, hopefully, someday.”

Get the Story:
Tribes from US, Canada sign bison treaty (AP 9/23)
Historic Buffalo Treaty signed by First Nations to bring back bison (The Calgary Herald 9/24)