SANTA FE, N.M. – It’s quite unusual for a foundation to grant money for land acquisition. But the Lannan Foundation has done just that, and now a New Mexico pueblo has 5,000 acres of its ancestral land base back, while four other tribes have bought back another 6,000 acres.

Lannan, a family-based foundation started in 1960 and first known for a deep interest in the arts and creative writing, might not be the first group that would come to mind for a project that helped Santa Clara pueblo regain its ancestral headwaters. But since 1994, it has run an Indigenous Communities Program, targeted to helping rural Native people with education, cultural, language, legal and environmental concerns.

ICP has helped at least a dozen projects in these areas, ranging from assistance for the Blackfeet and Hawaiian languages to Western Shoshone land rights. And it was the “special projects” section of the Indigenous program that Santa Clara turned to, when it discovered that land alienated from it more than a century ago was about to be sold to the federal government.

According to the Foundation, in 2000 it provided assistance to the pueblo to buy back more than 5,000 acres, as well as to hire an attorney that specialized in these cases.

And while it did not divulge grant amounts, according to the New York-based Foundation Center, Lannan was the fifth largest grantor to Indians for 2000, with $4,213,760.

Alvin Warren, who was the pueblo’s land officer back then, told last year’s Indian Land Consolidation Symposium in Albuquerque that Lannan’s timely grant was the key to getting the complicated land deal done.

At stake was P’opii Khanu, the headwaters of Santa Clara Creek, alienated from the tribe since 1860. Warren told the meeting that the tribe read about its impending sale in the newspapers, and went looking for the cash to buy the land back.

The headwaters were part of a larger parcel, called the Baca, which the federal government wanted to buy in order to establish the Valdes Caldera National Preserve. The family that owned the parcel was willing to sell, but only to the federal government. So the tribe tried to piggyback on that sale.

It took three years of hard and frustrating work, Warren said, but the tribe got the federal government to assign it the rights to buy 5,046 acres, with easements on another 1,200 acres. And, it was able to convert the land to trust status, and add it to its reservation north of Santa Fe.

Besides the satisfaction of getting the land back, Warren showed the meeting a souvenir he has kept from the process?a bullet-ridden “no trespassing” sign that once warned members of the tribe away from the headwaters.

Lannan’s special projects program has also granted money to buy back land in California to establish the first inter-tribal wilderness park in the United States. The InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council, a consortium of 10 tribes, used Lannan’s grant to buy 3,900 acres of land within the ancestral Sinkyone lands in Mendocino County.

Plans are to allow traditional hunting, gathering and fishing within the area, following traditional ecological practices.

In Florida, foundation money has been used to buy more than 2,000 acres in a traditional Seminole wetlands area north of Lake Okeechobee to be used and managed by Traditional Seminoles through the Indian Law Resource Center. Besides conservation, it is hoped that having the site will help re-establish the tribe’s Green Corn Dance.

A couple of smaller purchases have helped the Gar Creek Seminoles to buy 590 acres in Seminole, Okla. and the Zuni Pueblo to acquire 160 acres near the pueblo in western New Mexico.

Laurie Betlach, Lannan’s ICP project officer, told Indian Country Today “at this time, there are no land acquisition projects planned or pending. We are still working with some of the tribes to provide funds for operating support to manage the lands.”

Lannan grants have also assisted the Traditional Native American Farmers Association of Santa Fe, which represents families belonging to 18 tribes in Arizona and New Mexico that want to reinvigorate Native farming traditions, and the Zuni Pueblo’s Eagle Aviary project, which seeks to breed eagles whose feathers can be used in religious ceremonies.

In the area of legal rights, the foundation is supporting projects like the Eastern Navajo Dine Against Uranium Mining, Crownpoint, N.M.

Lannan Foundation’s Indigenous Communities Program and Land Acquisition Projects:

Protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples – especially human rights, cultural rights, and environmental rights?is at the heart of the Indigenous Communities Program’s (ICP) mission. Toward that end, grant funds and legal technical assistance have been awarded to Indigenous communities involved in land acquisition and recovery, among other efforts.

Since 1994, the Lannan Foundation has been involved in supporting several land acquisition projects, described below. These large-scale projects have been brought to the attention of the ICP staff and foundation board members by grantees, advisors, friends and acquaintances in Indigenous communities throughout the United States. The Lannan Foundation recognizes the need to go beyond the regular grant program guidelines at times and invest in these unique and critical projects. These grants are developed by invitation from the foundation’s board of directors. As such, the foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals for land acquisition projects.

In its 1998 retrospective review, one of the key recommendations from Lannan Foundation Board, Advisory Committee, and staff to other funders was to support the acquisition and recovery of Native lands. (Visit http://www.lannan.org/ICP/report.htm)

Indigenous Communities Program: Stats on Land Acquisition Projects (listing acreage and amount of grant):

Independent Traditional Seminole Nation — 2405.739 — $2,336,811.10 (Grant made to Indian Law Resource Center); Intertribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council — 3900 — $1,410,000; Gar Creek Seminoles — 590 — $420,153.75 (Grant made to Indian Law Resource Center); Pueblo of Zuni — 160 — $80,000; Santa Clara Pueblo — 5,046 — $ 4,476,958.

Totals are 12,102 acres and $8,723,923 in grant funds.