Rights of Nature is a global movement across Indian Country to protect our lands and natural resources for generations by recognizing nature’s legal rights.
Honoring the Rights of Nature has always been essential to the worldview and cultures of First Peoples. The Rights of Nature movement simply puts into law what has always been a part of traditional laws: that the natural world must thrive if our Peoples and cultures are to survive.
We created a Guide to understanding and organizing for Rights of Nature in Indian Country as an educational resource for anyone interested in bringing this movement home.
Guide to Rights of Nature in Indian Country
As a coalition of Native and Native-descended authors, we wrote this guide by and for American Indian/Alaska Native community members who are interested in learning about how the Rights of Nature can bring Tribal values into contemporary law.
Email us for a printed copy! RightsofNature@bioneers.org
Native Youth Ambassador Program
Bioneers is an organization dedicated to bringing about a Revolution from the heart of Nature. For 35 years, we have gathered as a hub of social innovators, movement makers, and justice seekers to collaborate and innovate solutions to the world’s most pressing problems.
This year, we are excited to bring together a coalition of youth to our annual conference representing the four corners of this country, united in a vision to “Indigenize the law.” Our current environmental laws treat the natural world as a mere commodity. If our current environmental laws worked to protect the planet, we would not be in our catastrophic ecological state.
As part of our Indigenous Rights of Nature project, we have created a Native Youth Ambassador project. Recipients of this Youth Ambassador grant will receive a 10k community organizing grant, access to a Bioneers Learning Course on the Rights of Nature, and travel scholarships to our annual conference in Berkley, California. This organizing grant is for activities supporting movements to “Indigenize the Law.”
Bioneers hopes that, through these networks, alliances, funds, educational resources, and travel opportunities to our conference, the recipients of this Native Youth Ambassador Program will be able to shift public perception, fight for sacred environments, and advance a new legal paradigm that honors the Rights of Nature.
History of the Program
Bioneers formed this youth grant after a group of Mashpee Wampanoag Youth passed the first-ever Rights of Herring Resolution. Their success story has become the blueprint for our Rights of Nature work. Bioneer’s Indigeneity program aims to scale this Youth Ambassador Grant to more youth groups across Indian Country.
The story of Bioneers and the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s collaboration starts in the Spring of 2022 when Bioneers hosted a Rights of Nature Workshop at their Tribal headquarters. From the connections formed there, the Bioneers’ Indigeneity team initiated a Rights of Nature Youth Ambassador program in partnership with the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. Under the umbrella of this “Rights of Nature Youth Ambassador Program,” Bioneers sponsored community gatherings, provided honorariums for youth participation and their adult facilitator, supplied a media kit, and sponsored the youth cohort to attend an intertribal “Herring Camp” in Alaska and Climate Week in New York. In addition to the fiscal and travel support, Bioneers invited the youth to participate in a six-week virtual community organizing workshop hosted by a member of our Indigeneity team.
During the “Herring Camp” trip, the Mashpee youth spent a week with other Native youth from seven different regions, learning Traditional Ecological Knowledge and studying the Rights of Nature movement in Indian Country. Inspired by what they had learned, they wrote their first resolution, an emergency declaration, declaring the Rights of the Herring and the Tribe’s Rights to protect them. They returned home, wrote letters to their Chair and Council, then presented and passed their resolution unanimously. Then, the youth organized a Rights of Herring Declaration Day at the Tribal headquarters. They invited key stakeholders to hear their Resolutions and participate in a collaborative conversation on how the City, County, and Tribe could work to restore the health of the Herring ponds and runs.
This youth cohort is still active, meeting regularly and working towards preserving their culture by protecting the Herring. They have spoken nationwide on the importance of cultural and ecological preservation. They recommended viewing their social media @mashpeenea on Instagram to follow their journey through photos. Their success and story have shifted our strategy to invest in Native youth-led organizing and hosting educational workshops.
If you are interested in this program, please contact our project coordinator, Britt Gondolfi, at britt@bioneers.org.
If you are interested in bringing this movement to your community, we would be happy to brainstorm with you.
Behind everything is a story.
Here is the story of how Bioneers developed the Rights of Nature in Indian Country Project
There is strength in numbers.
Here are other organizations working to advance Nature’s legal state and Honor Mother Earth’s right to exist