Seeking to hear directly from tribal leaders on the important issue of land and water rights, Senate Committee on Indian Affairs Chairman Jon Tester (D-Mont.) held a hearing on five bills that would strengthen tribal land and water rights and increase economic development on tribal lands July 9.
Indigenous Peoples
People whose ancestors inhabited a place or a country when persons from another culture or ethnic background arrived on the scene and dominated them through conquest, settlement, or other means and who today live more in conformity with their own social, economic, and cultural customs and traditions than those of the country of which they now form a part.
Source: Convention (No. 169) concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries, UNHCHR, 1991.