The Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce are hampering the ability of the Interior Department and other federal agencies to develop and finalize co-stewardship agreements with Native American tribes, a federal watchdog agency finds in a new report.
The Government Accountability Office report released Wednesday recommends, among other things, that the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service take steps to assess whether they have the “staff capacity related to developing shared decision-making agreements with Tribes and Native Hawaiian communities.”
The report says staffing cutbacks have prevented land management agencies from conducting “workforce planning to assess their capacity related to developing agreements” with tribal leaders and Native Hawaiian communities.
“Doing so could enable better understanding of how to allocate agencies’ limited resources, address any skill gaps, and make strategic use of partnerships with Tribes,” according to the report.
