Spy Stuff Helps Tribe Save Land

Technology developed by the CIA to spy on the Soviets soon will begin helping Navajos stop the deterioration of their homelands.

In a unique exchange of information, CIA officials have agreed to share the once-secret software, which is now declassified, and to teach Navajo engineers to use it.

It is an effort that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, said Midge Holmes, a CIA spokeswoman. But the end of the Cold War and efforts by Vice President Al Gore to make government technology available for commercial uses have changed all of that.

The CIA’s involvement with the Navajos began in 1993, when Lawrence Lano attended an American Indian Science and Engineering Society meeting in Spokane.

Lano, president of the group’s Northern Arizona chapter and a Navajo, noticed a CIA-sponsored booth that was showing videotape of the oil fires Iraq set in Kuwait. Analyzing satellite photos, the CIA could determine how serious they were and how much oil was involved.

Lano said he also asked tribal officials if there was any way the CIA could help the tribe. It turned out that in 1994, the tribe had joined with several state agencies to buy Landsat thermatic-imagery maps of Arizona.

The technology will enable the tribe to determine which reservation areas are overgrazed and which can handle more livestock, Radcliffe said.

It also could give the tribe an idea of how much livestock the land can support without overgrazing.