Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 12, Number 1, 1 January 1995 — Sharing your stuff: a new golden rule [ARTICLE]

Sharing your stuff: a new golden rule

"We have the right to control our own eeonomie future," says Rebecca Adamson, president of First Nations Development Institute. And an obligation to share native people's world view with mainstream society, she added. lt's a view that embraces sustainable development and culturally appro-

priate development modes. Adamson spoke of reciprocity and sharing, contrasting that with a dominant eeonomie system whieh

values aeeumulahon, fosters individuals with insatiable attitudes, and bemoans the scarcity of resources. "When we have a bunch of individuals with insatiable appetites trying to accumulate, it's no wonder resources are scarce," she said. In many ways, Adamson made clear, the Native American and Hawaiian experiences are parallel. The Allotment Act of 1 867, like the Mahele of 1848, "brought us the joys of private property. The joys of private property whieh resulted in a 70 percent reduction in the acreage controlled by Native Americans." And, although Native Americans are second only to the federal government in the amount of land owned, they don't have direct eontrol over that resource. The Bureau of Indian Affairs is their trustee over land management, resulting in 80 percent of the acreage being leased to non-native peoples below market rates. Murmurs and empathetic gestures from the audience suggested Hawaiian participants could relate, At the reservation, Adamson said, the pawn shop is often the only credit provider. Because Native Americans have owned, but not eontrolled, their resources, financial institutions could pretty mueh sys-

tematically red-line them: no collateral, no loan. No credit history, no loan. And, after all, said the banks, because of your sovereignty, we're afraid we won't get our money back if you default. Yet at one reservation, these same banks were garnering 25 percent of their prof+t fronr managing the tribe's operating

account. Adamson and other Native American leaders have taken a twop r o n g e d approach. "We need systemic

reform, through legislation and publie policy," she said, "and we need to develop our community-based organizations at the same time." In the first case, Adamson pointed to the Tribal Trust Reform Act, whieh allowed tribes to manage and invest their own trust funds. The act was passed, Adamson said, after the General Accounting Office eoncurred with the tribes that the Bureau of Indian Affairs had been mismanaging the funds entrusted to it. In the second instance, Adamson cited the Lakota Fund, a eommuni-ty-based lending program developed on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and Nebraska. By engaging banks and public and private resources, the fund has been a successful instance of a communitycontrolled lending institution, whieh helps stop the hemorrhage of funds to border towns willing to take cash, but not cash checks, for tribal members. "It's an ecology of life, not just eeonomie development," says Adamson, "and when we encourage sharing, instead of accumulation, as the basis for eeonomie development, the world benefits with us." EB

"We have the right to control our own eeonomie future." - Rebecca Adamson