Land & Wellness
Native Stewardship
Program Officer
Bonnie Claxton
Chickasaw Nation
“The health of Indigenous Peoples is inherently tied to the well-being of the land we call home. The Center for Native Health’s Land & Wellness Program Area is proud to support community-lead, grassroots efforts that prioritize shifting Indigenous land and food sovereignty, towards a return to living in balance with the land, air, water, plants, and animals we rely on for the well-being of our communities.”
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Earth Keepers.
ᎡᎶᎯ ᏗᏂᎦᏘᏱ “Elohi Dinigatiyi” Earth Keepers are traditional Cherokee knowledge keepers supported by The Center for Native Health’s Land & Wellness Program who came together to apply Kituwah science, and the language that protects it, to conserve and preserve the mountains, forests, water, and air and all they contain. They advise the EBCI Natural Resources Department and others on how to best care for Cherokee people and lands
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Convergent Pyroscapes.
Working with scholars from the University of Georgia, The Center for Native Health’s Land & Wellness Program will be contributing Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) to the existing research about fire on landscape, how TEK and Western science can work together to restore environmental health, and how to reintegrate both TEK and fire back into landscape stewardship for future generations
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CNH Community Garden
Located at the mothertown of Kituwah, CNH's Community Garden is designed to integrate Native science into every aspect of its design. Currently managed as part of a Blue Cross/Blue Shield grant, the garden contributes to Food Sovereignty initiatives on the Qualla Boundary.
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Land Conservation (EBCI NatRes).
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Land Designation & Conservation Policy Research Fellowship.
Through a partnership with The Wilderness Society, the Center for Native Health has developed a summer fellowship to engage Cherokee youth in policy work that centers the viewpoint of Indigenous Peoples in land management within their homelands
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Land Conservation and Co-Stewardship
The Center for Native Health’s Land & Wellness Program and the US Forest Service are engaged in a years-long effort to engage Cherokee cultural specialists and knowledge keepers with biodiversity on their ancestral lands currently managed by the USDA Forest Service. To accomplish this, The Center for Native Health’s Land & Wellness Program and the US Forest Service consult with Earth Keepers, as a culturally based advisory group, on target areas including unique habitats and biodiversity hot spots and convene Tribal cultural specialist meetings and field trips reconnecting with these areas
Contact us.
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Upcoming events.
Check back with this public calendar for updates and events from the Center for Native Health’s Land & Wellness Program Area.