The Ute Indian Tribe issued a news release on Monday announcing a lawsuit against Colorado officials for “denying the Tribe equal access to their homelands where generations of Tribal families have accessed these forests.” The complaint alleges that Colorado legislation, which grants free state park access only to the Southern Ute Indian Tribe and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, “unlawfully excludes the Ute Indian Tribe, despite that the majority of the lands covered by this legislation fall within the historic aboriginal territory of bands that today comprise the Tribe.” Tribal Chairman Shaun Chapoose did not mince words on the impending litigation: “Colorado’s parks bill is a broken promise codified into law. It is shameful. It acknowledges the profound ties to our homelands while demanding our exiled Tribe pay an entrance fee to visit our own sacred grounds from which they drove us. We will not stand idly by and pay for the same privilege to access our places to pray, to hunt, to fish, we will not be erased by Colorado from these lands.” The lawsuit seeks to revise the bill to include the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation.
