Ecotrust's Native Programs
Overview
Jeannette Armstrong was presented with the 2003 Ecotrust (formerly Buffett) Award for Indigenous Leadership for her work as a community leader, educator and indigenous rights activist. Learn more...
From a decade of close and evolving relationships, Ecotrust draws guidance from and provides assistance to the Native American and First Nations communities of Salmon Nation.
Key Objectives
Support a growing network of leaders, increase outdoor education opportunities for native youth, broker resources for repatriation and improved management of traditional lands.
The North American "frontier" approach to resource development has often come at a steep cost to resource-dependent communities, especially Native communities, who have typically been denied meaningful economic participation. Recent trends indicate that an era of change is now upon us. Tribal populations are booming. There has been a 72 percent population growth in the American West from 1981 to 1998 and a similar boom in Western Canada. Treaty negotiations in British Columbia promise to dramatically increase the land and resource base under First Nations' rule.
Ecotrust is actively working to promote leadership that both reaffirms tribal values and creates new possibilities for stewardship within the Pacific salmon territory of North America. Through the generosity of the families of Howard and Peter Buffett who endowed the program with $500,000 for the award, we are proud to sponsor the annual Ecotrust Award for Indigenous Leadership in Conservation. Each year the Ecotrust Award honors the achievements of five outstanding individuals for their drive as catalysts for better conditions in their communities. The 2002 Ecotrust (formerly Buffett) Award recipient is Kelly Brown, an educator from the Heiltsuk tribe of Mid-Coast, BC.
The framework for our work with Native communities is outlined in the paper Just Transactions, Just Transitions. By Just Transactions, we mean helping tribes gain greater access, ownership and control over lands and natural resources. By Just Transitions, we mean a deliberate and strategic approach to the process of building "more reliably prosperous" communities.
Ecotrust is also a full partner in the Elakha Alliance. The Alliance received resolutions of support from the National Congress of the American Indian and the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians in its efforts to restore the sea otter to the Oregon coast after a nearly hundred-year absence.
We believe that our modest successes with Native communities to date demonstrate that there is a significant harmony between our vision of a conservation economy on the one hand and traditional ecological knowledge and ideals of social justice on the other.
Partners
Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission
Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde
Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians
Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation
Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation
Elakha Alliance
Indigenous Ways of Knowing Project, Lewis and Clark College
Klamath Tribes
Longhouse Education and Cultural Center, The Evergreen State College
Native American Advisory Council, Office of the President, Willamette University
Native Village of Eyak
