Indigenous Peoples Day

Native Women's Wilderness was created to bring Native women together to share their stories, support each other, and learn from one another as they endeavor to explore and celebrate the wilderness and their native lands.

Established in 1990 within the United States, IEN was formed by grassroots Indigenous peoples and individuals to address environmental and economic justice issues (EJ). IEN’s activities include building the capacity of Indigenous communities and tribal governments to develop mechanisms to protect our sacred sites, land, water, air, natural resources, health of both our people and all living things, and to build economically sustainable communities.

The National Indian Council on Aging, Inc. (NICOA) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 1976 by members of the National Tribal Chairmen’s Association who called for a national organization focused on the needs of aging American Indian and Alaska Native elders. The mission of NICOA is to advocate for improved comprehensive health, social services and economic well-being for American Indian and Alaska Native elders. In addition to providing service through the Administration for Community Living within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, NICOA operates as a national sponsor for the Senior Community Service Employment Program authorized under Title V of the Older Americans Act.

The National Indian Health Board (NIHB) represents Tribal governments—both those that operate their own health care delivery systems through contracting and compacting, and those receiving health care directly from the Indian Health Service (IHS). Located in Washington DC on Capitol Hill, the NIHB, a non-profit organization, provides a variety of services to tribes, Area Health Boards, Tribal organizations, federal agencies, and private foundations, including: advocacy, policy formation and analysis, legislative and regulatory tracking, research on Indian health issues, and training and technical assistance programs.

Providing national leadership to end violence against American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian women by lifting up the collective voices of grassroots advocates and offering culturally grounded resources, technical assistance and training, and policy development to strengthen tribal sovereignty.

NABA is a 501c3 national organization that serves as a voice for Native American business owners and entrepreneurs. We promote economic development and opportunities for Native American businesses to grow and thrive. NABA advocates for policies and programs that support Native American business owners and work to create a more inclusive and diverse business community.

NDN Collective is an Indigenous-led organization dedicated to building Indigenous power. Through organizing, activism, philanthropy, grantmaking, capacity-building and narrative change, they are creating sustainable solutions on Indigenous terms.

American Prairie is working to restore bison to their historic habitat on American Prairie lands, providing visitors a chance to experience the United States' national mammal, the majestic species that played a central role in the culture and spirituality of the Indigenous People of the Great Plains and astounded the earliest explorers. Thanks to donors and collaborators, American Prairie reintroduced bison on their lands in 2005, returning a species that had been gone from the landscape for more than 120 years. The management of their bison herd should be exemplary for how to restore and conserve the genetic, ecological, and behavioral features of wild bison. In doing so, and by sharing their research and experience, they hope to inspire and support others who wish to restore bison elsewhere in North America, from Canada through the United States to Mexico.

This website is dedicated to the Treaty, first signed on September 24, 2014 at the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, honoring, recognizing, and revitalizing the time immemorial relationship between the first peoples of the First Nations of North America and the Buffalo.

Over the last decade, Defenders of Wildlife along with several national parks, tribes, the InterTribal Buffalo Council, World Wildlife Fund, National Wildlife Federation and the Wildlife Conservation Society, are cooperating to relocate bison to the plains. The goal is to help achieve management goals that are designed to increase land for bison habitat and grow the herds for long-term conservation. This effort involves documenting the current herds, acres of lands managed for bison as wildlife, and to track where individual animals are transferred to supplement conservation herds on tribal and public lands. Defenders of Wildlife's GIS tracking tool, showing historic movements of bison from Badlands, Wind Cave and Theodore Roosevelt National Parks, also has direct applications to tracking animals translocated to various conservation herds across the plains. These are the herds dedicated as wildlife. With an absence of predators and limited hunting, maintaining the appropriate herd to land ratios as well as diversity are important to overall bison management.

The 28,000 acre Wolak̇ota Buffalo Range, home to over a thousand buffalo, is the largest Native-owned bison herd in the world. Wolak̇ota supports the regeneration of the land, people, and economy of the Siċaŋġu Lak̇ota Oyate. Wolak̇ota centers a Lak̇ota worldview while addressing two of humanity’s great existential crises: climate change and social inequity. As the largest native species in the grassland prairie, the bison plays a healing and restorative role in a healthy ecosystem. And as an animal recognized by the Sicangu Lakota as a relative, the buffalo plays a healing and restorative role in the Native cultural economy. When the buffalo is healthy, the Sicangu Oyate is healthy.

In 2016 One Spirit built the Charging Buffalo Meathouse. This meat processing facility is the only one on the Pine Ridge Reservation and not only provides employment opportunities, but also helps bring back the buffalo as a traditional food source for the Lakota and plays a vital role in reviving buffalo herds. "Despite the slaughter of the huge herds of bison which once roamed the plains by white settlers and hunters (often merely for hides), the Lakota have kept their hopes for returning the buffalo to their ancestral lands. As the only meat processing facility on the Rez, it allows the Lakota to harvest and process their sacred buffalo in the traditional and ceremonial way."

On September 7, 2023, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Office of Trust Services announced the Bison Project: $1.5 million in competitive funding to support 3 non-recurring 1-year projects for ecosystem restoration supported by bison conservation and expansion. The Bison Project will serve a variety of purposes that are designed to uphold the best of Tribal bison herd expansion interests, including a focus on ecosystem restoration through bison conservation. The Bison Project will foster practices that are traditional and culturally attentive to the historical coevolved relationship with bison to support the Tribe’s own self-determined well-being.

Duke University Press publishes several series that highlight Indigenous authors and Indigenous scholarship, including: "Detours: The Decolonial Guide Series," "Narrating Native Histories," "On Decoloniality," and "Radical Américas."

Oregon State University Press publishes several series that highlight Indigenous authors and Indigenous scholarship, including: "Culture and Environment in the Pacific West," "First Peoples: New Directions in Indigenous Studies," "Northwest Readers," and "Oregon Literature Series."

SUNY Press publishes several series that highlight Indigenous authors and Indigenous scholarship, including: "Trans-Indigenous Decolonial Critiques" and "Tribal Worlds: Critical Studies in American Indian Nation Building."

Teacher's College Press of Columbia University publishes several series that highlight Indigenous authors and Indigenous scholarship, including: "Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies Series," "Disability, Culture, and Equity Series," "Teaching for Social Justice," "Research and Practice in Social Studies Series," and "Multicultural Education Series."

TTU Press publishes several series that highlight Indigenous authors and Indigenous scholarship, including: "Global Borderlands," "Indigenous Foodways," "Plains Histories," and "Voice in the American West."

University of Arizona Press publishes several series that highlight Indigenous authors and Indigenous scholarship, including: "Amerind Studies in Anthropology," "Archaeology of Indigenous-Colonial Interactions in the Americas," "Critical Issues in Indigenous Studies," "First Peoples: New Directions in Indigenous Studies," "Indigenous Justice," "Gila River Indian Community Anthropological Research Papers," "Native Peoples of the Americas," and "Sun Tracks."

The University of British Columbia Press publishes several series that highlight Indigenous authors and Indigenous scholarship, including: "First Nations Languages," "Landmark Cases in Canadian Law," "Nature | History | Society," Pacific Rim Archaeology," and "Women and Indigenous Studies."

The University of Nebraska Press publishes several series that highlight Indigenous authors and Indigenous scholarship, including: "American Indian Lives," "Borderlands and Transcultural Studies," "Contemporary Indigenous Issues," "Indigenous Education," "Indigenous Films," "Native Literatures of the Americas and Indigenous World Literatures," and "New Visions in Native American and Indigenous Studies."

The University of New Mexico Press publishes several series that highlight Indigenous authors and Indigenous scholarship, including: "Amerind Foundation New World Studies," "Native Edge," "School for Advanced Research Contemporary Indian Artists Series," "School for Advanced Research Global Indigenous Politics Series," "School of American Research Southwest Indian Arts Series," and "Studies in Indigenous Community Building."

The University of Oklahoma Press publishes several series that highlight Indigenous authors and Indigenous scholarship, including: "American Indian Law and Policy Series," "American Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series," "New Directions in Native American Studies Series," and "The Civilization of the American Indian Series."

University of Regina Press publishes several series that highlight Indigenous authors and Indigenous scholarship, including: "Oskana Poetry & Poetics," "First Nation Language Readers," "Beginning Languages," "Continuing Languages," "Canadian Plains Studies (CPS)," "Indigenous Voices in World Arts and Cultural Expressions," and "Our Own Words."