GBWTI AT A GLANCE
At the Great Basin Water & Tribes Initiative (GBWTI), cultural survival and prosperity are at the heart of what we do. And that begins with our connection to water, just as it has since time immemorial. As indigenous Newe people, our survival and our future remain a constant fight to protect what we have and to work diligently toward a better, brighter future.
GBWTI comprises four Tribes: Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation, Duckwater Shoshone Tribe, Ely Shoshone Tribe, and the Indian Peaks Band of the Paiute Tribes of Utah. Many of our Tribes signed treaties with the United States in 1863, but we never ceded our lands, waters, and other resources to the United States. Instead, the treaties called for “peace and friendship,” allowed for safe passage of travelers, and allowed for limited use of specific resources.
Since that time, our Tribes have lost nearly all of our ancestral homelands to the United States. Almost a half-century later, the US forced the consolidation of our Tribes and Bands onto small reservations. It was not until 1914 when the US established a reservation for the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute. Between 1915-1924, the US established the Indian Peaks Reservation, consisting of less than 10,000 acres. In 1930-1934, the 10-acre reservation for the Ely Shoshone was acquired by purchase. In 1940, the Duckwater Shoshone Tribe acquired land through a purchase, which later became its reservation. In 1954, the US terminated the Indian Peaks Reservation, and Indian Peaks Paiute people were forced to relocate to a few acres near Cedar City, Utah.
To survive, our Four Tribes have had to buy back, win back, or otherwise pursue with great diligence and fortitude the rights and resources necessary to exist. This road has been met with extreme hardship and challenges, including a lack of funding that is needed to protect and enhance our tribal rights, sovereignty, culture, and land and water resources.
Our decades-long gains are at risk, especially due to increasing demands of our resources by outside entities and the severe lack of funding to take action on high-priority initiatives. Our collective voice has the power to avert this increasing risk. Indeed, our Tribes came together on previous occasions to protect our sacred lands and waters. In part, this created the impetus to form the GBWTI. And in 2024, we conducted a Tribal Needs Assessment focused on water-related needs of each of our Tribes. That assessment clearly demonstrated that funding was the root challenge to build tribal capacity in all areas of water-related management, including for protecting Tribal Rights and providing water for residential, commercial, and agricultural uses. The assessment also underscored funding needs for ensuring safe drinking water supplies and delivering technical water management needs. Equipped with this important baseline information, we aim to utilize our united front to harness power that makes real, lasting change.
How do we create this kind of change?GBWTI is building tribal capacity to help our culture survive and prosper, to restore and enhance basic water-related needs of our Tribes, and to give our people a brighter future. We engage in a holistic approach to solve our ongoing crises of water and cultural survival, bringing forward new opportunities and advancements in education, tribal rights, landback, and health, safety and infrastructure.