Today is World Nature Conservation Day, which is dedicated to protecting Mother Earth and ensuring a sustainable future. 

Here at Native Organizers Alliance, we work in partnership with Tribes and Native leaders to protect sacred and ancestral lands and waters, including these national monuments that are currently under threat: Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah, Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, and Pipestone Monument in Minnesota. 

Corporate polluters and government agencies are endangering these sacred places, along with nearby communities and people living downstream. Our communities are on the move against oil and gas sales, fossil fuel pipelines, and toxic mining.

Together, we’ve helped secure crucial Tribal-federal co-stewardship agreements, including plans for sustainable land, energy, and water management for generations to come. 

But some of those agreements — and the national monuments they protect — are currently under attack. 

Working with Tribes and Inter-Tribal Coalitions protecting these lands, we’re defending their inherent right to co-manage their ancestral lands and waters as their ancestors did — living in balance with the natural world. 

Tribes have played a big role in revitalizing the buffalo population of the U.S. They are vital to Indigenous identity, spirituality, and creation stories. Buffalo are also better for prairie ecosystems and land conservation than cattle, but the Bureau of Land Management is trying to deny our buffalo populations access to federal lands. 

We will keep supporting the movement to protect Mother Earth, all beings who depend on her, and Indigenous peoples’ rights and cultures. Strengthening Tribal sovereignty is a major pathway to effectively conserve natural resources and mitigate the impact of climate change.

Hawwih (thank you) for helping to defend Mother Earth’s sacred lands and waters, and all beings that depend on them. 

Together, we can keep building a powerful movement to re-Indigenize public lands and our society, including restoring our relationships with — and responsibilities to — Mother Earth and all living beings.