Ancestral Lands: Restoration through Partnership and Development of Native Young Adults
Mike Wight1* and Michellsey Benally2*
1Director Ancestral Lands, Southwest Conservation Corps
2Program Director, Southwest Conservation Corps
The Ancestral Lands program has been running strong with Conservation Legacy’s Southwest Conservation Corps for 10 years. Since 2008, the nonprofit has been engaging Indigenous youth and young adults through conservation and restoration projects in and around local communities. The conservation corps model began its roots at Pueblo of Acoma and has since expanded into five place-based programs: La Plazita, Acoma, Zuni, Hopi, and Navajo. The unique program is not only committed to rehabilitating the natural environment but hopes through incorporating “cultural” sensitivity and lifestyle, this will allow for a realignment of identity as being Indigenous to North America. Ancestral Lands crews’ have been working on projects ranging from historical preservation, traditional agriculture and food sovereignty, hiking clubs, fencing, trail construction, land/stream restoration and more. The Ancestral Lands Navajo program has been involved in several ongoing restoration projects since conception. In 2017, partnering with the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Navajo Natural Resources, the program completed a 21,000-acre project along the Little Colorado River conducting field data collection weed inventory mapping, helping to develop a mitigation strategy. In collaboration with National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Rivers Restoration Adventures for Tomorrow, Ancestral Lands assists in a yearly 85-mile river trip down Cataract Canyon of the Colorado River, undertaking weed removal/inventory, restoration, and wildlife survey. Over the last five years, Glen Canyon NRA, the Escalante River Watershed Partnership, and Ancestral Lands Navajo have worked to complete river restoration projects along the Escalante River and its tributaries, improving the riparian health. Learn how the Ancestral Lands program has been empowering individual’s development and completing restoration projects in the Colorado River Basin and how connection to community, partnership development, and support from Conservation Legacy has been a success at multiple levels.