Two decades ago, an anthropology professor at the University of Utah asked the National Science Foundation to fund research on Native American ancestors to determine when the cultivations of crops like corn first became prevalent in their cultures.

For months, talks over a new casino deal between New York State and the Seneca Nation of Indians have been at an impasse, with the two sides deadlocked over the size of the state’s cut of hundreds of millions of dollars in gambling revenue, and what the tribe would get in return.

It’s been decades since Madonna Thunder Hawk last saw the valley she grew up in on the Cheyenne River Reservation. It lies buried under the Missouri River. The United States government sent the river rushing over the reservation’s largest town in 1960 as part of a series of post-war federal flood control projects.

The majority in the 5-4 decision wrote that the treaty did not require the country to take  “affirmative steps” to secure water for the tribe. 

The 1868 peace treaty in question established a reservation for the Navajo and granted them the right to use needed water on the reservation. 

In the town of Fairfax, Oklahoma, the fact that life was good for the Osage Indians in the late 1800s might have seemed to some like sweet justice. 

For the reservation they had been shunted to decades earlier had turned out to be brimming with oil, and the tribe put it good use by building mansions, buying cars and sending their children to private schools.

But, by the time the 1920s came around, at least two dozen of them had been murdered by being shot, poisoned and blown up - and no one knew who was responsible. 

Balmy beaches, Napa Valley wineries, scenic hikes, Hollywood: The list of California’s draws is practically as long as its coastline. But even if you’ve hit them all, chances are you’ve only skimmed the surface.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday proposed baseline water quality standards for tribal waters, which the agency said would protect more than 500,000 people who live on reservations. 

According to the agency, most tribes with reservations don’t currently have water quality standards, and the proposal would put these waters in line with others that are regulated by the federal government. 

This Spring, a high level delegation met inside the Arizona Governor's office to announce a huge water conservation deal.

The crowd was a who's who of the western water world, including top Biden administration officials, the head of Arizona's powerful water department, the state's Governor Katie Hobbs, and its senior Senator Kyrsten Sinema.

But the man at the center of the announcement was someone who probably wouldn't have even been invited to this type of event not too long ago: Governor Stephen Roe Lewis of the Gila River Indian Community.

The climate crisis is often touted as an emergency that needs action now to stave off negative impacts in the future. But for one native community in the U.S., the consequences of climate change are already here.

The community Isle de Jean Charles, a barrier island located in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, where the delta of the Mississippi River opens to thousands of wetlands in the Gulf, is already being forced from their ancestral homes due to rising sea levels and climate change.