Reunion

Enlivening Land reunion yields stories that tell of renewal and restoration that benefits humans, ecologies, and mutual thriving. Stories reveal what’s made possible when we honor inescapable interdependence and uphold an ethic of reciprocity that fosters right relationship at multiple levels, from soul to soul, from the soil to sky. These stories clarify the possibilities for harmonizing discord and addressing the resource and power imbalances resulting from enacting human supremacy, treating the land as commodity, and forcefully fragmenting relationality.

Begin here:

Cultural Lands Case Studies: models of land back, co-stewardship, and cultural easements: A research report featuring seven case studies of Native Land rematriation, describing various approaches spanning cultural use access to full Land reunion.

Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe Reacquires Ancestral Lands: Press release describing specifics of the Upper Mattaponi tribe's reacquisition of  855 acres of its ancestral lands along its namesake river in Virginia via purchase with grant funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Virginia Coastal Zone Management Habitat Protection and Resilience Fund, the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation, and technical support from the Trust for Public Land. 

Growing the Legacy: Stewarding a Black Agrarian Revival in the Rural South:  Zine that tells the story of the first five years of the Southeastern African American Farmers’ Organic Network’s Black Land Tenure project, clarifying strategies for interrupting Black land loss and revitalizing Black agrarianism in the rural South.

In Historic First, Nebraska Farmer Returns Land to Ponca Tribe Along the "Trail of Tears" - Article describing the 2018 land gifting ceremony between farmers Art and Helen Tanderup and the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska at the 5th annual planting of sacred Ponca corn, following a 137-year absence after the Tribe’s forced removal from their lands by the U.S. government along the “Trail of Tears” route that crossed the land being returned