At Strategic Earth, our work is grounded in relationships: long-term, heart-centered relationships built on trust and honoring the knowledge, leadership, and sovereignty of the communities we have the privilege of working alongside.
Since our inception in 2010, Strategic Earth has invested in supporting Indigenous leadership and growing a network of Native Nations engagement practitioners. That work is now laying the foundation for a new Indigenous-led area of practice, which we intend to launch in 2027.
We are co-creating this next chapter alongside Indigenous leaders, Tribal Nations, culture bearers, Indigenous organizations, and community partners. Our vision is to create pathways for Indigenous leadership, governance, and ownership to shape Native Nations engagement, facilitation, capacity building, and collaborative decision-making.
This direction is a continuation of the values that have shaped our work for more than a decade: collaboration, transparency, and community-centered decision-making. What is new is our clarity and readiness to grow this work in a way that aligns with Indigenous leadership and is responsive to community needs.
Over time, our intention is to create a dedicated Indigenous-led area of practice where Native Nations engagement, Indigenous facilitation, relationship-building, and related work can be shaped by Indigenous governance supported through its own resources, partnerships, and decision-making structures. While the details continue to evolve, our goal is to build a model that expands Indigenous decision-making within this work while maintaining close collaboration with the broader Strategic Earth team.
Why Now?
Over the past fifteen years, Strategic Earth has grown through relationships with Tribal Nations, Indigenous leaders, culture bearers, and Native Nations engagement practitioners. These relationships have shaped not only our work, but also our understanding of what meaningful partnership requires.
As we look toward the future, we believe it is important that our organizational structures continue to evolve alongside our values. While Indigenous leadership has long informed and strengthened our work, we see an opportunity to create more intentional pathways for Indigenous leadership, governance, decision-making, and ownership within the systems that support that work.
Our Intention
Across California and beyond, Tribal Nations, culture bearers, Indigenous organizations, and community leaders are advancing some of the most innovative, culturally grounded, and ecologically effective practices in land and water care. These approaches are rooted in Indigenous Traditional Knowledges (ITK), knowledge systems that have sustained lands, waters, and communities since time immemorial.
Yet too often, Indigenous voices are brought into planning, research, and decision-making late in the process, inconsistently, or without the structural support needed for full and equitable participation. Our intention is to help shift the systems that shape environmental governance so that Tribal governments, culture bearers, Indigenous organizations, and community members are engaged from the beginning, not as stakeholders, but as foundational decision‑makers. We are doing this because:
- ITK and stewardship practices are vital to climate resilience, biodiversity, and ecosystem health.
- Tribal Nations and Indigenous organizations have modern, sophisticated science, monitoring, and research capacity.
- Tribal Nations hold inherent sovereignty and rights that must be respected and upheld in all collaborative processes.
- Culture bearers and Indigenous organizations carry forward cultural practices, governance systems, and community priorities that strengthen environmental decision‑making.
- Our collective future depends on relationships built on trust, reciprocity, and shared responsibility, not extractive or transactional engagement.
This work is not extractive. It is not transactional. It is relational, long-term, and grounded in accountability.
We believe meaningful engagement begins by ensuring that Tribal perspectives, priorities, and leadership are embedded throughout planning, research, and implementation.
Our Vision for Strategic Earth’s Indigenous-Led Area of Practice
Our intention is to co-create an Indigenous-led area of practice that creates meaningful pathways for Indigenous governance, self-determination, and decision-making within the systems that shape environmental stewardship and community engagement. As this vision evolves, we are committed to leading with relationships, following the guidance of Tribal Nations and Indigenous partners, practicing cultural humility and accountability, and building systems that support long-term collaboration.
To put these commitments into practice, we are:
- Creating pathways for Indigenous youth and emerging leaders
- Investing in Indigenous staff development, mentorship, and professional growth
- Building long-term partnerships with Tribal Nations, culture bearers, and Indigenous organizations
- Expanding support for Indigenous-led stewardship and ITK-based approaches
- Redesigning engagement frameworks and facilitation practices to better reflect cultural protocols and Indigenous knowledge systems
Our Shared Future
We envision a future where Strategic Earth is known as a trusted partner to Tribal Nations, culture bearers, and Indigenous organizations. We aim to be a bridge-builder across systems and a collaborator who shows up with humility, consistency, and respect. This moment requires courage, clarity, and commitment. We are ready to deepen our Indigenous-centered work and expand our capacity to support Tribal Nations, culture bearers, Indigenous organizations, and Indigenous communities in ways that are meaningful, respectful, and aligned with community priorities.
Our intention is simple:
To honor Indigenous leadership, uplift Indigenous Knowledges, and help build a future rooted in sovereignty, reciprocity, and reciprocated partnership.
This vision cannot and should not be built by one person or one organization alone. We are incredibly grateful to Teresa Romero, who is helping lead this effort. We are also committed to co-creating this vision alongside Tribal Nations, culture bearers, Indigenous organizations, community leaders, and trusted partners. We welcome conversation, collaboration, and shared leadership as this vision continues to take shape.
If this resonates with you, we would welcome the opportunity to connect. Please reach out to Teresa at teresa@strategicearth.com to begin a conversation about how we might learn, build, and grow together.
Preparation Notice
ChatGPT was used in a limited editorial capacity to support document organization, readability, and flow. All ideas and content were human-generated and reviewed, edited, and finalized by Strategic Earth.