Officials on the Navajo Nation have signed a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of the Interior approving the Federal Land Buy Back program. It’s the latest tribe to participate in the federal program.
The goal of the program is to reduce what’s known as fractionation, or the amount of land within tribal boundaries that’s individually owned. The land sold through the buy-back is held in trust for each tribe, which essentially turns it into official reservation land.
Deswood Tome is with the Navajo Nation President’s office. He said one reason the tribe entered the agreement was to reduce uncertainty as groups in surrounding states begin to push congress to transfer federal public land back to state control.
"Navajo Nation always believes that land is important and land is inherent in our sovereignty and in our language and our culture and that they’re all inextricable," Tome said.
Officials said the Navajo Nation has almost 34,000 individual land owners. The cost to cover those land interests is estimated at more than $100 million.
