Geospatial Agenda for Indian Affairs was an update by the Geospatial Information Officer of the Bureau of Indan Affairs during ESRIUC 2010. Participants from various tribal communities wanted access to these slides and they are provided here as a courtesy and with permission.

1. GEOSPATIAL AGENDA IN INDIAN
AFFAIRS
STATUS UPDATE
2010 ESRI INTERNATIONAL USERS CONFERENCE
RICHARD F. MOORE
GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION OFFICER
INDIAN AFFAIRS
Access to the Right Information for Authorized Users, Anywhere, Anytime, Any
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2. INSTITUTIONAL DRIVERS
PREPARING FOR TODAY AND TOMORROW
• Legal context: Policy and Progress
o Geographic & Locational privacy
o Protection of sovereign rights and business interests
o Fractionation is undivided interests, fractionation is really a flavor of cadastre
• FLAIR H.R.1520 - Federal Land Asset Inventory Reform
o Indian Affairs is not the only Federal Agency
• Fiduciary Trust Model (FTM, c2003)
o Recommends an Indian lands Cadastral GIS (C-GIS)
o Do the CTM/FTM remain the DOI’s Trust reform roadmap?
• Best Practices: Demonstrated successes in Indian Country
o Aqua Caliente: “The Agua Caliente Land Status map is the most valuable resource used by the Tribal
Planning and Development Department…. ”
o Skagit River System Cooperative: Forest Practice Activities (ESRI Pub. – Tribal GIS)
o Yakama: OTS plat book from Yakama cadastral GIS
o Coeur d’Alene: “Earth Knowledge Tool” & GNIS (http://gis.cdatribe-nsn.gov/)
o Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission: Land ownership
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3. CURRENT & FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES
WHAT IS CURRENT - IS - THE FUTURE
Geography as a communication framework
o Transparency: Map Central at Recovery.gov
o Collaboration: NSDI, The National Atlas, OGC, Indigenous
Mapping Network
o White House to tie together mapping and data sites
– Data.gov & GeoData.gov
» http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20100528_4200.php?oref=rss?zone=NGtoday
– GeoPlatform
» http://www.geoplatform.gov/
o Communication
GIS is the GUI for information discovery
o Mash-ups
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4. ORGANIZATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR COLLABORATION
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5. INSTITUTIONAL DRIVERS
OCIO - GIS & ORGANIZATIONAL METRICS
Achievements Challenges Opportunities Risks
• 38 classes, 311 • Funding • OTS GIS Advisor • Enterprise GIS
Students (82 BIA / • No codified • The BLM has retired • Reduction of IIRIP
229 Tribal) governance NILS • Fragmentation of
• 10.7m GIS (GSA) structure for • Cobell settlement enterprise GIS
software distributed tasking, monitoring includes DOI • Loss of program
(9.3m savings) and accounting of commitment to confidence in OCIO
• 1,296 Helpdesk enterprise GIS resolve long as reliable partner in
Tickets serviced CY09 activities outstanding Trust GIS support and
• 28% increase CY 08 • Matrix-management land ownership development
• 71% Tribal organization in a (cadastre) issues.
line-item budget • FTM
• Comprehensive
world Recommendations
rewrite of existing
Task Orders • Executive • AAS
awareness (TAAMS Recommendation
as an enterprise • A well researched
GIS) and documented
• ELA: No policy framework for Trust
framework for True- Lands cadastre
up with Tribal user already exists
base (87%)
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6. A DATA-BASED STRATEGY FOR GEOSPATIAL TECHNOLOGY OF
TRUST
The Challenge: Geographically display legal land description of trust tracts
Staffing
• BIA lacks a dedicated cadastral GIS skill base
• A Trust cadastral-based GIS business process is needed
• Effort to accomplish this is highly labor intensive
Data
• Good data is the foundation for information technology
o TAAMS trust tract land descriptions are not in a form readily translatable into a geographic
representation
o Tract data are not tied to a measurement-based cadastral framework
o Trust tracts are unlike any other Federal lands:
– Individual beneficiaries
– Many to many relationship (many owners/tract – many tracts/owner)
• Trust Land Spatial Data is Unique
• Land Description element of TAAMS records are not standard
Technology
• TAAMS:
o Trust asset accounting system: Who & What
o Geographic Information Systems (GIS): Where
• Many candidate solutions - No turn-key technology exists
• All highlight a weakness in the trust tract land descriptions
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