Posted on Sep 18, 2023
How land trusts overlap with the land back movement in Oregon
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On a cloudy September morning, dozens piled into kayaks, stand-up paddle boards and a canoe near the base of Willamette Falls. As they took to the water, Gerard Rodriguez, Yaqui and Nahua, spoke about the river and the importance of the falls to local tribes.
“This is a very important place that connects all of Indigenous country here in Oregon,” said Rodriguez, associate director and director of tribal affairs at the Willamette Falls Trust, a megaphone projecting his voice across the water. “This is an intertribal area that connects many different tribes — the Yakama Nation, the Warm Springs people, Umatilla, Siletz, Grand Ronde and Nez Perce. So welcome here, to Indigenous land.”
The trip was part of the four-day Land Trust Alliance Rally, an annual conference where hundreds of representatives from land trusts from across the country gathered. It came the day after an unofficial part of the rally: a summit where nearly 100 Indigenous leaders discussed the historic problems with land trusts, most notably the lack of Indigenous values and leadership, and how organizations should be doing it better.
At the Indigenous Land Conservation Summit, participants envisioned a future where Indigenous voices and values are central to conversations about land protection, and how they overlap with Land Back efforts.
“Today’s purpose is really making a space for Indigenous land practitioners who belong in this community of land trusts but are excluded from it,” said Anna-Liza Victory, Cherokee, summit organizer and Oregon Land Justice Project manager.
“This is a very important place that connects all of Indigenous country here in Oregon,” said Rodriguez, associate director and director of tribal affairs at the Willamette Falls Trust, a megaphone projecting his voice across the water. “This is an intertribal area that connects many different tribes — the Yakama Nation, the Warm Springs people, Umatilla, Siletz, Grand Ronde and Nez Perce. So welcome here, to Indigenous land.”
The trip was part of the four-day Land Trust Alliance Rally, an annual conference where hundreds of representatives from land trusts from across the country gathered. It came the day after an unofficial part of the rally: a summit where nearly 100 Indigenous leaders discussed the historic problems with land trusts, most notably the lack of Indigenous values and leadership, and how organizations should be doing it better.
At the Indigenous Land Conservation Summit, participants envisioned a future where Indigenous voices and values are central to conversations about land protection, and how they overlap with Land Back efforts.
“Today’s purpose is really making a space for Indigenous land practitioners who belong in this community of land trusts but are excluded from it,” said Anna-Liza Victory, Cherokee, summit organizer and Oregon Land Justice Project manager.
How land trusts overlap with the land back movement in Oregon
Posted from opb.org
Native Americans
Leadership
Conservation
Culture
Posted 7 mo ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."Land trusts: acquisition and preservation
Like many spheres in the climate activist world, land trusts have typically been dominated by white-led organizations. And as some Indigenous people at the event on Wednesday expressed, for that reason these spaces have not always felt welcoming.
“The Land Trust Alliance, the group that holds the rally, stewards about 90 land trusts who own a good chunk of what’s now known as the United States,” said Gabe Sheoships, Cayuse/Walla Walla tribal citizen of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, executive director at Friends of Tryon Creek. “A large majority aren’t [Indigenous led] and don’t have relationships with tribes, don’t know about tribes in general.”
Land trusts are conservation organizations that focus on land acquisition and preservation, traditionally using a model of conservation easements. A conservation easement is an agreement between a private land owner and a land trust or government agency that limits the use of the land and allows the property owner to retain many private property rights.
So a land owner might make an agreement with a land trust to hold their land, in order to protect and preserve it in perpetuity.
But baked in are ideas that originate in colonial culture – some of the same ideas that created the need land trusts seek to fill.
Many land trust projects don’t include public access to land. When they do, there is often an idea that human access should be limited in order to preserve the land, according to Victory. Land trusts usually prioritize activities like hiking, while limiting the ability to hunt, fish and gather food and medicine. This excludes Indigenous people and their inherent right to the land, as well as their knowledge as stewards of the land since time immemorial.
Limiting those activities erases their value as stewardship activities, Rodriguez said.
“The word conservation is extremely problematic because we’re not conserving the land for non-human interaction. That’s a very Western idea,” Rodriguez said. “As Indigenous people, we think about how humans and our populations have always been, to use one of their terms, a keystone species, just like every other part of the circle.”
In that sense, conservation easements are contrary to the efforts of the Land Back movement, perpetuating colonial ideas of land ownership and of an inherent separation between humans and the land that makes restricting their interactions a good thing.
“[Land trusts] need to get away from conservation easements and that feeling that there is always going to be a need to control how Indigenous people are on the land,” Victory said."...
..."Land trusts: acquisition and preservation
Like many spheres in the climate activist world, land trusts have typically been dominated by white-led organizations. And as some Indigenous people at the event on Wednesday expressed, for that reason these spaces have not always felt welcoming.
“The Land Trust Alliance, the group that holds the rally, stewards about 90 land trusts who own a good chunk of what’s now known as the United States,” said Gabe Sheoships, Cayuse/Walla Walla tribal citizen of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, executive director at Friends of Tryon Creek. “A large majority aren’t [Indigenous led] and don’t have relationships with tribes, don’t know about tribes in general.”
Land trusts are conservation organizations that focus on land acquisition and preservation, traditionally using a model of conservation easements. A conservation easement is an agreement between a private land owner and a land trust or government agency that limits the use of the land and allows the property owner to retain many private property rights.
So a land owner might make an agreement with a land trust to hold their land, in order to protect and preserve it in perpetuity.
But baked in are ideas that originate in colonial culture – some of the same ideas that created the need land trusts seek to fill.
Many land trust projects don’t include public access to land. When they do, there is often an idea that human access should be limited in order to preserve the land, according to Victory. Land trusts usually prioritize activities like hiking, while limiting the ability to hunt, fish and gather food and medicine. This excludes Indigenous people and their inherent right to the land, as well as their knowledge as stewards of the land since time immemorial.
Limiting those activities erases their value as stewardship activities, Rodriguez said.
“The word conservation is extremely problematic because we’re not conserving the land for non-human interaction. That’s a very Western idea,” Rodriguez said. “As Indigenous people, we think about how humans and our populations have always been, to use one of their terms, a keystone species, just like every other part of the circle.”
In that sense, conservation easements are contrary to the efforts of the Land Back movement, perpetuating colonial ideas of land ownership and of an inherent separation between humans and the land that makes restricting their interactions a good thing.
“[Land trusts] need to get away from conservation easements and that feeling that there is always going to be a need to control how Indigenous people are on the land,” Victory said."...
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