President Biden nominated Charles “Chuck” Sams III to serve as director of the National Park Service on Wednesday. If confirmed, the former director of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and current member of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council would be the first Native American to direct the agency that oversees millions of acres of ancestral tribal territories and treaty lands, now national parks or monuments.

Holly Cook Macarro, Red Lake Ojibwe, said Sams’ nomination to oversee Native lands taken by “treaty violations, theft and other forms” was ironic, and “once again feels like things are coming full circle.” Representation is important, she told Indian Country Today, as now “there’s someone on the very top who understands the tribal perspective and is going to bring it to the table in a way that we haven’t seen before.” (Indian Country Today, Indianz, Oregon Public Broadcasting, E&E News, Axios, KTVZ, Bellingham Herald)