59.01.020 Scope

All research including human subject research conducted within the Tribe's Territory and involving the Tribe's members has the potential to cause harm and should therefore be strictly regulated.

(a) The natural and cultural landscapes, including wildlife, flora, fauna, waters, and biogenetics, among others, located on aboriginal and present day Tribal lands are owned by the Tribe and the disposition, development, and utilization thereof are under the Tribe's full control and supervision.

(b) The integrity and orientation of past, present, and future generations of the Tribe is founded upon a unique and invaluable cultural, historical and environmental ethic which defines and perpetuates an identity, language, history, and value system involving an irrevocable cultural attachment to the native landscape ecology, and the human inseparability and interdependence with species and biological diversity.)

(c) The Tribe has the right of self-determination and in exercising that right is the exclusive owner of indigenous traditional knowledge.

(d) Indigenous knowledge, cultural and biogenetic resources, and intellectual property rights have been, and continue to be, damaged, destroyed, stolen, misappropriated, both on and off the Reservation. As members of the Tribe have been the subjects of human research for decades, with virtually no benefits returning to the Tribe from such research.

(e) The Tribe finds that it is in its best interests to establish a research review mechanism to prevent the continued abuses, and to protect the people's traditional knowledge and properties, and thereby to ensure our rights to continue to practice traditional lifeway's for our long term survival.

(f) The established research review process is developed as a mechanism to improve relations between the Tribe and scientists/researchers, and to promote collaboration within the framework of mutual respect, equity, and empowerment, and maximize the benefits and reduce any risks to the Tribe.