The lands and waters of the American West encountered by European colonizers were not “untouched” or “wild” as some have recorded, but rather the result of a broad range of Indigenous land and water management techniques. To assume that western-based scientific knowledge is superior to Indigenous wisdom can be a barrier to meaningful and lasting collaboration. We must work together if we are to heal the land that we have collectively sullied.

Darren Parry is the former chairman of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation. He teaches Native American history at Utah State University and serves on the board of directors of the American West Heritage Center, in Wellsville, Utah; the Utah Humanities board; and the PBS Utah board of directors.