It’s that time of year again. The leaves have turned and the air is frosty in the homelands of the Wampanoag Peoples, who first welcomed the Pilgrims. As Thanksgiving approaches, some people think of it as a holiday to express gratitude, and others think of it as a day of mourning. 

Over the years we have produced several articles and created original curriculum to help people understand the complexity of Thanksgiving. We invite you to explore our Decolonizing Thanksgiving collection to learn more and gain some ideas about how you might celebrate (or not) Thanksgiving this year. 

Explore the Collection

The descendants of the Wampanoag who shared the fateful feast in 1621 with the Pilgrims are still here. They still eat their traditional foods and practice their cultures. They have protected — and continue to protect — their lands and waters for at least 12,000 years. The Indigeneity Program has been partnering with the Mashpee Wampanoag since 2021, invited by Tribal citizen Danielle Greendeer, and lead author of Keepunumuk Weeachumun’s Thanksgiving Story with Alexis Bunten, Co-Director of the Indigeneity Program.

Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal citizens wanted to learn more about how the Rights of Nature can be a tool to continue to steward their homelands and hosted our team to present a Rights of Nature workshop. This workshop led to the establishment of a youth group who call themselves, “Native Environmental Ambassadors.” Through a series of meetings and intertribal convenings, these youth wrote a resolution to protect “the Rights of Herring,” a keystone species in the Eastern seaboard. The Resolution was unanimously passed by their Tribal Council. 

Since then, the Native Environmental Ambassadors have presented their story, inspiring others to know that anyone can organize to protect nature. You can learn more about their story by watching their presentation at Bioneers’ first Rights of Nature Intertribal gathering in 2023. To directly support the Mashpee NEA’s organizing efforts, you can donate here.

Watch Now

Bioneers has championed the Indigenous Rights of Nature campaign since 2017. We’ve conducted legal research, created guides, and presented at countless events across Indian Country to provide Tribes with information and capacity building skills to pass Rights of Nature laws.

Over the past 11 months, the Native Youth Ambassadors presented their story in the Indigenous Forum; we launched an online “Indigenize the Law” course via the Bioneers Learning platform; and we scaled the Youth Ambassador program to serve four additional Indigenous Youth groups with mini-grants, educational materials, personnel support, and travel scholarships to the 2025 Bioneers conference. 

You can learn more about the Indigenous Rights of Nature movement by checking out these resources:

• Rights of Nature webpage
• Guide to Rights of Nature in Indian Country
• From Grassroots to Mainstream: Legalizing Nature’s Rights
• Indigenizing the Law: Course Highlights

What better way to bring truth and reconciliation to this time of year than to decolonize your Thanksgiving and support the Indigenous Rights of Nature Movement? If you feel inspired by our work to share cutting-edge ideas and champion a revolutionary movement for nature, please donate to support this programming. For more information about our Rights of Nature Initiative, you can email rightsofnature@bioneers.org.

This year, we are so grateful to you for being a part of the Bioneers community. 

—The Bioneers Indigeneity Team

Upcoming Bioneers Learning Courses

We’re so excited to share this new season of Bioneers Learning courses! We’ve designed this season of both live and asynchronous courses for leaders like you — those who seek empathetic, intersectional conversations with leading activists and experts on the issues you are passionate about. Together, we will reimagine philanthropy, learn to harness nature’s timeless strategies to drive social transformation and build emotional resilience for frontline activism. 

• Thicket: Navigating Emotional Resilience in the Face of Climate Change | Jan. 13-March 3, 2025 | Presented by the Climate Emotional Resilience Institute, this eight-week experiential program provides practical tools, emotional resilience training, and community support to help those on the frontlines of climate work stay grounded and engaged.
• Decolonizing Philanthropic Practice | Jan. 30-March 6, 2025 | In this transformative journey to reimagine philanthropy, explore how your relationship with money and inherited belief systems shape the ways you give back.
• Speak Your Truth: Leadership, Writing & Public Speaking for Social & Environmental Justice | Feb. 28-March 21, 2025 | This hands-on social justice leadership course, led by award-winning author and activist Jennifer Browdy, will equip you with practical tools to communicate your vision and build a campaign to bring it to life.
• Reweaving the Dream of Our Future: How to Tell Powerful Stories to Change the World | April 10-May 1, 2025 | This course is designed for those who feel called to harness the power of storytelling to inspire personal and collective change. Together, we will explore how to be effective storytellers and how to communicate a vision of what’s possible. 
• EveryWoman’s Leadership: Cultivating Ourselves for Full-Spectrum Flourishing | April 16-May 7, 2025 | Guided by Bioneers co-founder Nina Simons, this four-week experiential program invites women, female-identifying individuals, and allies into a transformative space to cultivate inner awareness, relational intelligence, and clarity of purpose. 
• Biomimicry for Social Innovation: Nature’s Lessons for Movement Leaders | May 13-June 3, 2025 | This four-week experiential course reveals how biomimicry—a practice that draws on the genius of ecosystems—can inform leadership, partnership building, and decision-making for lasting, regenerative change.
• The Four Sacred Gifts: Indigenous Wisdom for Modern Times | Self-Paced | Discover how the Four Sacred Gifts of forgiving the unforgivable, unity, healing, and hope in action provide us with a path to our most grounded, loving, healed, and generous selves.
• Regenerative Agriculture: Nourishing the Soil, Healing the Planet | Self-Paced | Be enlightened on the practical applications and impressive potential that regenerative agriculture has to revive healthy landscapes; contribute to human and animal health; create an equitable food system; and help heal the climate.