We serve as a trusted resource to our Indigenous partners and landholders, providing the tools they need to protect the land. Our team offers a wide range of support, from thought partnership to providing models and bridges to other experts and support.

Ultimately, we aim to empower tribes and Indigenous peoples to engage in the processes for land conservation and return, including how to avoid common pitfalls.

We provide technical assistance to Indigenous people working to protect and rematriate land.

This includes Indigenous-led organizations, land trusts, and tribal nations, as well as individuals or groups beginning or in the midst of this work.

We define land rescue as our commitment to rematriate land by returning the land to its original stewards to restore balance and health for all. In instances where land return is complete or not presently possible, NLC can act as a container to hold land and get it off the market while opening it to Native people.

We do not work in competition with other land return efforts. If a landholder chooses the NLC as a legal tool, we will accept it to ensure the land is protected and open for cultural access. We abide by the traditional wisdom that land does not belong to us and it is our duty to protect and share land as appropriate. We do not offer grants or other financial support for purchasing or transferring land.

Conservation easements are voluntary legal agreements between a landholder and an easement holder, typically a land trust or government entity. Conservation easements can be a step towards land return, especially when the legal terms of that easement are created through an Indigenous lends.

Relationship to land is at the core of Native lifeways. When we open up lands to Native access and care, we are restoring a sacred connection. At NLC, we use easements to safeguard the land and make space for Indigenous self-determination: an essential part to cultural resurgence and Indigenous futures.

A cultural respect easement is a legal agreement with a landholder that guarantees Indigenous cultural access to their ancestral land forever. A conservation easement is a legal agreement with a landholder to permanently conserve the land and project it from development.

Cultural respect easements are a relatively new tool for land access and return that has become more common in recent years. Cultural respect easements are voluntary legal agreements, typically between tribal groups (nations or Indigenous organizations) and landholders (land trusts, governments, or individuals) that grant Indigenous access for cultural activities and practices.

Learn more about how cultural respect easements can be a tool for land return.

We use the term “landholder” because it emphasizes responsibility and relationships to place rather than ownership.