Indigenous Regenerative Land Back Program
RETURNING LAND.
RESTORING RELATIONSHIPS.
BUILDING FUTURES.
ROOTED IN LAND AND WATER. GUIDED BY ANCESTORS. LED BY INDIGENOUS PEOPLES. FOR THE NEXT SEVENTH GENERATIONS.
Land holds memory.
It remembers the songs, the foods, the footprints, the fires, the medicines, the grief, and the return.
For Indigenous communities, Land Back is not a metaphor. It is a pathway toward healing, sovereignty, climate justice, cultural revitalization, and collective survival.
IJT’s approach is rooted in regenerative infrastructure: the belief that land, culture, governance, capital, youth leadership, food systems, and community well-being must be designed together.
We do not see land as property alone. We see land as relation, teacher, ancestor, responsibility, and future.
WHAT THIS PROGRAM DOES
The Indigenous Regenerative Land Back Program helps
Indigenous communities and partners move from possibility to action.
Our work begins with relationship and moves at the speed of trust.
OUR PROGRAM AREAS
Supporting the many pathways of Land Back.
1. Land Return & Acquisition
We support Indigenous communities in land return pathways including purchase, donation, bargain sales, conservation partnerships, and stewardship through feasibility support, partner mapping, fundraising, landowner engagement, and technical assistance.
2. Cultural Access & Stewarship
Not every Land Back pathway begins with ownership.
We support cultural access and stewardship that restore Indigenous presence through harvesting, ceremony access, sacred site protection, and partnership-based care of land.
3. Indigenous Stewardship & Youth Leadership
IJT supports youth-centered stewardship, land-based education, cultural mapping, restoration, Indigenous GIS, climate adaptation, and intergenerational learning.
4. Land Back Planning & Technical Assistance
Land return requires more than vision, it requires capacity.
IJT supports Indigenous-led planning through community engagement, research, facilitation, grant writing, storytelling, governance design, budgeting, and implementation planning.
5. Regenerative Land Capital
IJT builds pathways for philanthropy, donors, conservation partners, and community investors to support Indigenous stewardship, land acquisition, cultural infrastructure, and long-term care.
Our long-term vision is an Indigenous Regenerative Land Fund.
6. Policy & Systems Change
Land Back is also policy work.
IJT supports reforms advancing Tribal sovereignty, Free, Prior and Informed Consent, sacred site protection, co-management, equitable conservation funding, and Indigenous-led climate resilience.
7. Storytelling & Narrative Change
The story of land return must be told with dignity, beauty, power, and truth.
IJT supports storytelling, oral history, youth media, education, exhibitions, documentary work, and art that preserves what has always been possible.
OUR APPROACH
Rooted in relationship.
Guided by sovereignty.
Designed for future generations.
Indigenous leadership first
Communities closest to the land lead the vision, decisions, and priorities.
Sovereignty is foundational
We honor Tribal sovereignty, self-determination, treaty rights, and Indigenous governance.
Relationship before transaction
Land work must not become extractive, rushed, or performative. Trust is infrastructure.
Stewardship beyond acquisition
Land return without long-term care is incomplete. We plan for restoration, maintenance, legal protection, cultural use, and future generations.
Regeneration over preservation alone
We are not only protecting what remains. We are helping restore what can live again.
Current and Emerging IJT Land Back Work
Wasa’tós
A landscape-scale vision for land protection, cultural restoration, and regenerative stewardship in the Columbia Basin.
Breathing Meadows
A land-based healing and regenerative campus vision rooted in medicine, restoration, community care, and cultural stewardship.
Buffalo Bridge
A food sovereignty, buffalo stewardship, youth education, and storytelling initiative connecting land, culture, advocacy, and community nourishment.
Medicine Dance
Cultural infrastructure work supporting ceremony, gathering, food, elders, youth, and intergenerational continuity.
Who We Partner With
We welcome conversations with:
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Tribal Nations
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Indigenous-led organizations
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Indigenous land projects
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Landowners interested in land return
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Conservation organizations
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Land trusts
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Philanthropic partners
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Community investors
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Universities and research partners
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Youth and cultural leaders
All partnerships must respect Indigenous leadership, cultural knowledge, and long-term community benefit.
What Success Looks Like
Success is not measured by acres alone.
Success looks like:
Land returned to Indigenous stewardship
Cultural access restored
Sacred places protected
Youth learning on the land
Foods and medicines returning
Watersheds healing
Community governance strengthened
Indigenous stories carried forward
Future generations inheriting more possibility than we were given
Land Back is not just a demand.
It is a design challenge.
It is a healing process.
It is a future-building practice.
If you are an Indigenous community, landowner, funder, conservation partner, or ally ready to support land return and regenerative stewardship, we invite you to connect with us.