Let’s be clear: the Biden administration has been doing a good job at providing many ways for tribal communities to exercise self-determination, protecting our sacred places, creating opportunities for Tribal co-management of land and water, and restoring dignity by removing racist and misogynistic names from land and buildings across the country.

Still, while President Biden has made important strides forward, there’s still so much work to do to restore our sovereign rights to be full participants in decisions affecting the health and well-being of our communities and for future generations.

This is why we must ask President Biden to do more -- to keep fighting for our rights and delivering results.

Big Cypress National Preserve has been home for the Miccosukee people for centuries. They have stewarded its lands and waters and still live in traditional villages there. Today, there are fifteen active traditional villages in Big Cypress, sacred cultural sites, multiple ceremonial grounds, as well as burial grounds scattered throughout the Preserve. Beyond the physical occupation, Miccosukee citizens must retain rights to use and occupancy throughout the entirety of the Preserve as were explicitly protected in the Preserve’s 1974 enabling federal legislation.

In the coming weeks, the National Park Service is planning to designate the preserve as "wilderness" with the intention of increasing protections for the freshwaters and fish essential to its health and the health of the neighboring Everglades. However, this designation will significantly limit the Tribe's access to their homelands and sacred places. 

The Biden administration can protect Big Cypress without trampling on sovereign rights by pausing this initiative and calling for a supplemental environmental impact statement, during which Tribal input can be meaningfully heard and incorporated or by not establishing the new wilderness designation in the first place. Please sign and send a message to President Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland now.

The truth is the creation of national parks, and the designation of wilderness areas has often resulted in the forced removal of Tribal Nations who lived there, disrupting cultural continuity and causing direct harm to the ecosystems which they had been stewarding.

The creation of Everglades National Park, for example, resulted in the forced removal of Miccosukee and Seminole traditional villages and the taking of their 99,200-acre reservation. It is not the presence, or lack, of human habitation that defines the health of a landscape, but rather, it is the relationship of human beings with that land that determines the land’s fate.

Deleting Tribal Nations by the stroke of a pen from their lands is a surefire recipe for the same kinds of ecosystem collapse that Yellowstone National Park has endured.

So far, Big Cypress National Preserve has been spared the error of undertaking a fortress conservation approach. A wilderness designation which restricts Tribal citizens’ right to move freely about their homeland or which does not accommodate Tribal rights to permanent residence in those spaces will only serve to repeat again the folly of the past century’s approach to conservation.

We can make a difference in this fight. Please take a moment to sign and send your direct message urging President Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to honor Tribal sovereignty and protect Tribal access to the Big Cypress National Preserve now.

THIS TIME LET’S MAKE IT HAPPEN!

Hey Sierra Members and non-members! Here is the NEW RIGHT TO CLEAN WATER petition for you to sign and send in. Even though you signed the old one last year, we need to start all over again with only the NEW RTCWpetition’s signatures.

Here’s the website: www.floridarighttocleanwater.org

Let’s not miss this time and get it on the ballot in 2026!

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