Who decides what we eat?
Who controls how our food is grown, harvested, and shared? Who benefits, and who is left out?
These questions are at the forefront of any food system, and our own efforts toward Indigenous food sovereignty. Sovereignty is about the right of a community to define and govern its own food systems, to protect knowledge that has sustained generations, and to make decisions rooted in relationship with the land. Food sovereignty is inseparable from a broader strife for self-determination — and from a set of legal obligations the federal government has long been bound to uphold.
What Trust Responsibility Means
Trust responsibility is not a gesture of goodwill. It is a legal and moral obligation the federal government owes to sovereign Tribal nations — one established through treaties (like the Fort Bridger Treaty of 1863 and 1868 with the Eastern Shoshone), court decisions, and centuries of Federal Indian Law. It covers a range of commitments: access to land, healthcare, and culturally relevant foods. When the United States entered into treaty agreements with Tribes, it made binding promises. Trust responsibility is the framework that holds those promises accountable.
In practice, however, broken treaties and unmet responsibilities have left wide gaps in the health, food security, and cultural continuity of Tribal communities.
Buffalo as Food Sovereignty
For the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho peoples, Buffalo have been central to life for thousands of years. They were not simply a food source — their bodies provided clothing, tools, and materials woven into nearly every aspect of daily existence. This relationship has been shaped by generations of knowledge about how to hunt, harvest, and honor what the Buffalo offers.
The extermination of Buffalo by the United States in the 19th century was not incidental to the displacement of Indigenous peoples — it was part of the strategy. Destroying the herds meant undermining a way of life, severing communities from their primary source of food and cultural continuity.
The legacy of that destruction is still felt. And it is one reason organizations like ours exist.
How Tribes Fill the Gaps
When the federal government fails to meet its trust responsibilities, Tribal nations and their partners don’t wait. We build. We organize. We do the work ourselves.
Our mission to restore Buffalo to the Wind River landscape is, at its foundation, an act of food sovereignty. Returning Buffalo to the land means restoring access to a traditional food source that is hunted and distributed directly to community members on Tribal lands.
This work also exists within a broader policy landscape that does not always make it easy, and often ignores cultural diets. Funding structures tend to favor large-scale, non-Native agricultural models. Land access remains a barrier as well, because without land, communities cannot hunt, gather, or sustain the ecological relationships that define their food systems. Federal institutions have even retained control over seed varieties originally cultivated by Indigenous peoples, while offering limited access in return.
Food sovereignty pushes back against this model. Indigenous communities have the right to make decisions about their own food systems — and to define what a healthy, culturally grounded food system looks like on their own terms.
Buffalo Are a Treaty Right
The rematriation of Buffalo is not separate from self-determination — it is an expression of it. Access to Buffalo is a treaty right, tied directly to the food sovereignty and self-determination of the Tribes on the Wind River Indian Reservation. Legislation like the pending Indian Buffalo Management Act will help reinforce the legal mandate to manage and restore Buffalo populations on Tribal lands, extending the federal trust obligation to agencies like the USDA.
Like salmon for Pacific Northwest Tribes, Buffalo are a keystone species of diet, culture, and ecological relationships. At the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative, we are doing the work to bring them back as wildlife, with reverence for the right of buffalo to exist on Tribal land. Every animal returned to this landscape is a step toward honoring what was promised, and reclaiming our connection with Buffalo and their role in our lives, history, and health.
Recommended Reading: Horn to Hoof: The Many Uses of Buffalo