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CGC staff have over 50 years of collective experience working with Native American Tribes and traditional communities as activist academics and cultural geographers, applied anthropologists and critical ethnographers, and ethnoarchaeologists and professional cultural resources consultants. This experience has helped them recognize that meaningful and enduring empowerment can most effectively be built through collaborative programs that support and enhance the socio-cultural and environmental values and capacities of Tribes and communities.
It is the position of CGC that compliance is best and most fully achieved when Tribes and communities collaborate on all phases of cultural/natural resources projects from their inception. CGC staff have worked with and provided studies for over 30 Native American Tribes throughout North America on traditional cultural properties and traditional cultural landscapes, and have assisted with numerous Tribal meetings and government-to-government consultations. CGC staff have also assisted Tribes draft programmatic agreements to help ensure Tribal interests and needs are legally safeguarded. Education is important to Tribal and non-tribal representatives to ensure the compliance process progresses smoothly. CGC can develop, design, and implement cultural/natural resources capacity building workshops for Tribal, community, academic, governmental, and consulting entities.
It is a primary goal of CGC to help ensure that Tribal and community interests and concerns are at the forefront of cultural/natural resources investigations, that government agencies and other responsible parties are attentive to and honor their legal responsibilities for identifying and managing cultural/natural resources inclusive of Tribal and community values and concerns, and that culturally sensitive information is managed in a confidential manner consistent with Tribal and community values, beliefs, and perspectives. CGC staff are committed to implementing participatory methods and facilitating mutually beneficial partnerships in collaboration with and on behalf of Tribes and communities.
