Briana Edmo
Program Officer, Stewarding Native Lands
Navajo, Blackfeet, Shoshone-Bannock
Through the Environmental Sovereignty and Justice Initiative, First Nations provides direct funding and technical assistance to Tribes and Native-led organizations that are defending tribal homelands from harmful policies, extraction, and pollution. Foremost, this project is centered on supporting Tribes and Native communities to protect their health, traditions, and values. Both tribal and grassroots strategies are valued and uplifted under the Initiative.
This Initiative supports Tribal Sovereignty through capacity building that can enable development and enforcement of tribal codes; exertion of reserved and retained rights and off-reservation treaty rights; representation in federal, state, regional, and local advisory groups; and litigation. Direct support of community-led initiatives, such as grassroots organizing, community outreach and education, testimony, and protest are also supported.
Projects under this initiative are possible thanks to generous contributions from Patagonia and other anonymous and individual donors.

Our project will support the time of Kawerak's Tribal Research Coordinator create, distribute, and promote the Tribal Research Protocols and the newly developed Research Priorities of Kawerak-region Tribes to enhance Tribal Research Sovereignty..
We connect Apache people and other Native and non-Native allies to protect Chi’chil Biłdagoteel (also known as Oak Flat), a sacred site for Apache people and many other Indigenous people, from copper mining.
Our project's purpose is to stop helium extraction and a hydrogen pipeline in our communities on the Navajo reservation.
This project will advance collaborative fisheries research through the promotion and advocacy of the use of Skipper Science with fishery partners, and create and implement a policy for a subsistence food security monitoring program.
People of Red Mountain (Atsa Koodakuh wyh Nuwu, in Paiute) is a committee of traditional knowledge keepers and descendants of the Fort McDermitt Paiute, Shoshone and Bannock Tribes working in coalition with allies to protect our ancestral homelands.
The Protecting Ancestral Wisdom project will preserve, maintain, protect and offer services that better our tribal lands and communities to overcome the erasure of the Original People of Texas - the Esto’k Gna.
This project will support Bering Sea Elders Group reach the strategic vision outlined in our 2023-2028 strategic plan. This project will enhance the organization’s capacity to implement our strategic goals by supporting BSEG’s Elder Representatives participate in the Northern Bering Sea Climate Resilience Area (NBSCRA) work.
Building community strength through knowledge transfer and subsistence trainings
Inter-Tribal
This project will increase capacity for Bering Sea Elders Group with dedicated funding to implement strategic goals, including travel for Executive Committee trainings and upcoming Summit, communications planning and fund development planning, as well as items such as the creation of financial and other organizational policies.
Other
This program creates educational initiatives to teach the skills, knowledge, and practices of our kūpuna through interpretation, restoration, care, conservation, and protection of natural and cultural resources in Hāʻena, Kauaʻi. We are actively shaping current and future generations of conservationists, ʻāina stewards, cultural practitioners, and community advocates.
Initiate conversation and community engagement to explore issues, challenges, and solutions to addressing preservation of Bering Sea marine resources.
Pribilof Islands Aleut Communities of St. Paul & St. George Islands
This project will increase tribal environmental asset control on or near Native lands.
Inter-Tribal
Bering Sea Indigenous Training Academy
Other
Initiate conversation and community engagement to explore issues, challenges, and solutions to addressing preservation of Bering Sea marine resources.
Inter-Tribal
Initiate conversation and community engagement to explore issues, challenges, and solutions to addressing preservation of Bering Sea marine resources.
Orutsararmiut Traditional Native Council
Initiate conversation and community engagement to explore issues, challenges, and solutions to addressing preservation of Bering Sea marine resources.
Saint Paul Island
Initiate conversation and community engagement to explore issues, challenges, and solutions to addressing preservation of Bering Sea marine resources.
Inter-Tribal
Initiate conversation and community engagement to explore issues, challenges, and solutions to addressing preservation of Bering Sea marine resources.
Saint Paul Island
Initiate conversation and community engagement to explore issues, challenges, and solutions to addressing preservation of Bering Sea marine resources.
Inter-Tribal
This project will increase tribal environmental asset control on or near Native lands.