Every federally-recognized tribe has a special relationship with the federal government. Tribes are sovereign nations and have a government to government consultation status with the United States Federal Government and Tribes can have Cooperating Agency Status in federal land planning processes. Consultation and being a Cooperating Agency are both powerful tools. Tribes can request consultation on a government to government basis with federal agencies to discuss matters important to the tribe, like the impacts of certain uses of federally-managed land to the Tribe. Often this type of consultation means that representatives of the Bureau of Land Management travel to villages and meet with communities, sometimes at the Tribal hall, for informal meetings with Tribal leadership. The Cooperating Agency status tool was used effectively by two Eastern Interior tribes that insisted on a better process and spent hundreds of hours in two-way conversations about the draft plan language with BLM to achieve protections for traditional lands. The Chalkyitsik Village Council and the Gwichyaa Zhee Gwich’in Tribal Government from Chalkyitsik and Fort Yukon, respectively, gained some protections for critical Draanjik River watershed habitat.