The key part of UNDRIP to highlight in this case is the idea of “free, prior, and informed consent” that recurs throughout the document. Articles 11 and 19 of UNDRIP require such consent by Indigenous parties involved before any legislation that concerns them or their spiritual sites or items is passed. It is unlikely that if Yellowstone management had consulted Native peoples, the IMBP would exist as it does with the door still open for the destruction of Yellowstone’s bison population.
Furthermore, Article 20 of UNDRIP protects Indigenous peoples’ rights to their traditional means of subsistence. For many Native groups throughout the American West, bison play a key role in subsistence culture. If this article is applied in the future, bison populations will never again reach the edge of extinction and the bison. The people will have the chance to rehabilitate the culturally symbiotic relationship between humans and bison.
