Indigenous Insights & Leadership for Transformation | NatCap 2026

Those are some hard acts to follow. So, uh, last night in the courtyard, a few of us were talking about dreaming. I don't think that everybody in the conversation would characterize it that way, but we were talking about making alternative future scenarios and about how the act of envisioning a different future is a really important part of making that future possible. And I think that in general, we as a community are making real progress in mainstreaming the values of nature into decisions, but we really aren't going to get all the way there into that possible future if we don't get from head to heart. We need to find ways to tell different stories about the future. We have to think differently. And this comes from uniting disciplines like ecology and economics and engineering and computer science and hydrarology and health. But maybe more importantly, it also comes from different cultural traditions. So the dominant global culture, if that can be said to be a thing, um is what's gotten into gotten us into a lot of the messes that we are in now. And I think that um indigenous perspectives offer crucial insights into how to get us out of this mess. And before introducing our two speakers for this session, for those of you who like poetry, I enticed you with this yesterday. And if you're not a poetry fan, I threatened you with it. But here comes the poetry reading. So I'd like to read some excerpts from Joy Harjo's poem, A Map to the Next World. So there are three things you need to know before this poem. First is she's a Native American poet from the Muscogee nation. And the second is that in many native stories, time is cyclical. So there's sort of destruction and recreation in in multiple cycles over time. And in some Native American mythology, we're currently in the fourth world. So we're headed for a fifth that is above this one. We've been moving up over time, deep time. And the third thing is to know that this poem is dedicated to her granddaughter. So the poem starts off with, "In the last days of the fourth world, I wish to make a map for those who would climb through the hole in the sky." This poem, by the way, is really gorgeous and you should read the whole thing, but I'm on a time clock here, so I had to pick excerpts. So it goes on to say, "The map must be of sand and can't be read by ordinary light. It must carry fire to the next tribal town for renewal of spirit." In the legend are instructions on the language of the land. How it was we forgot to acknowledge the gift as if we were not in it or of it. I'm going to read that again. In the legend are instructions on the language of the land. How it was we forgot to acknowledge the gift as if we were not in it or of it. Take note of the proliferation of supermarkets and malls, the altars of money. They best describe the detour from grace. Keep track of the errors of our forgetfulness. The fog steals our children while we sleep. And then she goes on, "We no longer know the names of the birds here. How to speak to them by their personal names. Louisa knows some birds." Once we knew everything in this lush promise. What I am telling you is real and is printed in a warning on the map. Our forgetfulness stalks us, walks the earth behind us, leaving a trail of paper diapers, needles, and wasted blood. An imperfect map will have to do, little one. And then, and when you take your next breath, as we enter the fifth world, there will be no X, no guide book with words you carry. You will have to navigate by your mother's voice, renew the song she is singing. Fresh courage glimmers from planets and lights the map printed with the blood of history. A map you will have to know by your intention, by the language of suns. When you emerge, note the tracks of the monster slayers where they entered the cities of artificial light and killed what was killing us. I'm gonna do that one again, too. When you emerge, note the tracks of the monster slayers where they entered the cities of artificial light and killed what was killing us. That is what this community is doing. We are the monster slayers. You will see red cliffs. They are the heart. Contain the latter. She concludes, "We were never perfect. Yet the journey we make together is perfect on this earth who was once a star and made the same mistakes as humans. We might make them again. She said crucial to finding the way is this. There is no beginning or end. You must make your own map. I'll share the link if anybody wants to read the full thing. It's really amazing. [applause] >> [applause] >> And with that, I would like to uh bring up Kavika Riley, who's the chief communications officer at NATO. [applause] Let's see. Thank you very much. Mahalo for that introduction. An aloha mako. Aloha kaka. Uh, greetings everybody. Um, thank you to all of you for the opportunity to get to connect with you for a few minutes this morning. Uh, mahalo for the invitation to get to be here. Mahalo. And aloha to this place that we gather at. And aloha to the indigenous peoples who have sustained this place and who know it to be home and know themselves to be connected and to be part of nature, not separate from it. And then um before I go into my remarks, uh I wanted to just again congratulate and acknowledge the the winners uh of the of the youth prize award. So, just maybe just one more round of applause for Louisa, Fabian, Boris, and the Bhutan National Statistics Bureau. [applause] That's me and my colleagues in the Solomons standing above uh part of and at part of something called the sky islands. high elevation rainforests, where trees rise above the clouds, where the thick clouds look like islands themselves under a forest of green. And that green forest surrounds and anchors the Solomon Islands, which are embraced by the beautiful blue of the Pacific Ocean. Beneath those layers of impenetrable green, shaded by the clouds, the trees looking over them, are thriving natural systems maintained, I would say engineered by indigenous peoples who call that place home and know themselves to be a part of it. When I was standing on that platform, I was taking in the beauty, but I was also thinking about my home. I'm from Havi, Moku Kave, Havi Island. Part of my childhood was spent in a place called Woloa. Uh I know I've already met a number of you who have been to Havi. Uh in some cases, several of the islands. Maybe you've heard of Woloa. I'm going to tell you some things about it that you probably don't know. I'll share a little bit about some of the sources and associations of that place's name. And that means that I get to teach you a little bit of Hawaiian. Now ka thei uh in in all cases and with each of the names means fresh water in Hawaii the Hawaiian language or way uh also means abundance value. This makes natural sense to me probably does to a lot of you because when we think of the things that we most need fresh water is right up there at the top. When we think of the things that are associated with abundance and stuff that we don't just need but a lot of things that we want, we need water in order to get there. W Kaloa is said to be the name of a powerful wind that started in the uplands in the north of the island and grabbed fresh water and roared down the island with such force and strength that it carried the water all the way down to the shoreline. Woloa is also said to literally be the white or water of the koloa. That's our native duck. This refers to rich wet upcountry land with freshwater ponds where the ducks gathered. Like the legendary wind that I mentioned a minute ago, these upland ponds carried moisture down the land division which was characterized by sandalwood and other native trees in a thriving dryland forest. Like the peoples who have been and are maintaining abundance in the sky islands today, generations of native Hawaiians kept white coloa thriving. That sandalwood, those other trees, and other life in the dry forest was carefully managed. There's a proverb in the Hawaiian language when translated, it often uh is said to mean the rain follows the forest. This is a principle that applies to life as a metaphor. It's a principle that literally applies to the management of resources and land in a Hawaiian context. This is important here because the lower lands of Waloa have very little precipitation. So if you want to have rain, if you want to have water, that wealth, if you want to be able to survive, you need to bring the water down like that legendary wind. And so maintenance of these forests were essential for life. While it wouldn't show up on a balance sheet, the forest produced a different type of revenue. And the native Hawaiians who gathered there and sustained this were a certain type of asset manager. I would say a sustainable yield was generated as the plants were used for food, for medicine, and to make tools, weapons, homes, infrastructure, and on and on. Like the fiduciary of a perpetual trust, they kept the corpus, the forest intact and lived off the interest accumulated, the things that you could take while keeping the forest in place. That is the white coloa that I get to know from stories, from elders, from literature, and from language. This is what Woloa looks like today. Because over 200 years ago, the sandalwood from these dryland forests was extracted in pursuit of a different type of wealth. For the Hoyan kingdom, this was the first major economic boom and natural resource extraction in a standard western sense. Money was made, foreign things were acquired, and the forest was stripped bare of sandalwood. Because of crosscutting and the interconnected root systems of the dryland forest, when the sandalwood was taken, the rest of the trees went as well. Without the canopy protecting the undergrowth, the remaining natural life largely cooked in the sun. The rain follows the forest. So without the forest, the rain left too. You see no duck ponds in this picture, right? No uh water being carried down whether by wind or gravity or stream. Now to me both of these places are beautiful. Woloa is home, a place that helped to raise me. But which of these pictures, which of these actions better said, deforestation or guardianship feels is productive? Ironically, if we just measure things by GDP, the deforestation of Waloa was productive, right? The guardianship of the sky islands, in contrast, would not necessarily show up by so many different measures that are considered to be the legitimate ways to measure value, to measure productivity. Now, we know this doesn't make sense. You know it. People outside of this room know it as well. But in getting to talk with many of you, to listen to the presentations, and to be part of this symposium, one of the things that I think is so important about this gathering is that you don't just see that this doesn't make sense. So many of you are working to do something about it. To repair or to replace or retire systems that don't make sense, measurements that don't really work, frameworks and formulas that are flawed, and to replace them with things that can value and do value what is really valuable and tell that story. So, I told you a little bit about where I grew up. Professionally, my home is an organization called Neotero, an international nonprofit with the singular purpose of supporting indigenous people's guardianship of ancestral lands and waters. Natero's vision and mission we saw in the previous slide was something that came together as our our first CEO and co-founder Peter Celigman along with indigenous and non-indigenous leaders gathered together and asked themselves what can we do to save the one planet we have. Around this time, the scientific community and others were catching up to the reality that indigenous peoples make up about 5% of the world population. But by so many different measures, we are stewarding caring for a quarter of the planet. And in that quarter of the planet is roughly half of the world's most thriving places. This is not a coincidence. This is not because indigenous peoples were placed there. This is because indigenous guardianship works because people are part of nature. People are nature too along with the rest of these systems that we exist in kinship with. If we recognize that and yet less than 1% of global climate funding goes to indigenous peoples. There are other statistics looking at other types of funding measuring protection and thriving lands by other measures with slightly different results but it's an emerging near consensus. Now here uh for example uh we we wanted to highlight the the Garnett study and Garnett map which showcases where indigenous guardianship is in place. U that study came out around the early years of Neotero and was a really important part of elevating the conversations that we were having. This here um is a rendering of our own. It builds on what the Garnett study found and also shades in additional areas where we are aware through our work, through our partnership of guardianship happening. It's a lot right now. What's my point? My point is there there is a myth there is a misunderstanding that indigenous guardianship perhaps it's good but it's niche it's limited it's just happening in these little specks right um now indigenous guardianship is place specific but if we pan out and we look at what indigenous peoples are doing at the global level this is not niche this is one of the most powerful forces in protecting the world that we have left. So 8 years ago, we had ideas, we had hopes. 8 years later, where we are today, we're not perfect. We are still figuring things out, but we have results. I won't read them off for you, but I'll add to them. In addition to to these results, we've in partnership with uh our funders and indigenous communities been able to bring $125 million directly into indigenous communities, over 270 of them and counting. This has resulted and supported this has supported guardianship of over 130 million hectares of the earth. We're here at Stanford. U so I would equate that to about three Californiaiforns and the world needs this indigenous guardianship. In my lifetime, I'm I'm not 56 years old. I was born after 1970, whether my kids say so or not. Um, but the all of this here, the the overshoot where we've been deficit spending this one single planet that we have, right, is within my lifetime. What quickly happened to the forest of W Koa after generations of sustainable management is now happening to the world and living through it. I don't blame you if you feel sometimes like it's inevitable. I want to argue that it's not. It is not inevitable. It is not destiny. It is not normal. Consider here one set, one estimate, one range and timeline for the larger story of humanity. The overshoot, the 56 years is a little speck of red. In this context, over 99.9% of human history has been a time where we have not overused the planet. Did our ancestors make mistakes back then too? Yes, they did. But not at this scale. What is happening right now at a global level is not normal. It is not destiny. It can be changed, but people have to do it. So, what's my point? If you walk away with nothing else, I hope you'll consider that indigenous peoples are the best proven guardians of the world's natural assets. Not the only ones, but the ones who have been doing it for so long and who have continued in many cases to stay on the right path. As the humanity level, we the collective we have really changed down a course that we need to reverse. What does this mean? This means that if we want to preserve natural capital, we want to create a better future, we need to recognize indigenous sovereignty. We need to provide resources for indigenous people's guardianship. Not just because it's valuable, not just because it's the right thing to do, but also because it's effective. This is something that is being used um the incorporation of indigenous knowledge and values side by side with indigenous people right that where your gifts your scholarship your expertise can be there at the table something that we need and we see this in a number of places one of them this is another picture of Waloa um was shared with me by friends from the Waloa dry forest initiative and you can see this these are the results of some of how they're going back to indigenous knowledge, systems and practices, integrating that with uh western forms of conservation and starting to replenish that dry forest in Waloa so that perhaps one day the names that I shared with you will make sense as people drive by and as people live there. So what am I trying to say in closing? You can be a part of all of this. We need you to be a part of all of this. We need the monster slayers, right? Um, and I believe that we can. Why not? When we consider what 99.9% of human history has been, we can return to that story in a modern context alongside indigenous peoples and create a thriving world for future generations. Mahalo. [applause] Thank you, Kavika. We have our next speaker is Beth Rose Middleton Manning, who's a professor of Native American studies at University of California, Davis. Thank you, Beth. Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here and to learn with you about the work of the NATCAP Alliance. I'm grateful to be here in Mokma homelands. Um I'm AfroCaribbean and Eastern European and I've been in native studies and working with native nations for about the last 20 25 years. So I'll be speaking from that perspective. How do I advance? >> Green arrow. >> Green arrow. Okay. Thank you. Got it. Okay. Uh let me go back here. Actually I want to share to build on I think perhaps what Kavika shared some granular examples of indigenous stewardship and investment in natural capital but also kind of pushing that concept from indigenous epistemologies. And I come to this from a perspective of thinking about justice, land back, access back, but also recognition of indigenous ways of knowing and doing as Kavika was speaking about as well. And this is a picture from one of our keepers of the flame cultural burn workshops led by traditional fire practitioners uh from within these homelands, Putwin and Nissanon, and learning about returning fire for restoring traditional plants and soil health. So why the width and beyond? So I'll speak a little bit about the width in terms of how indigenousled efforts have used this concept of natural capital and ecosystem services to gain lands back and reestablish land relationality, care and stewardship, but also the beyond. And I think some of you are already doing much of this work, but thinking about what is the human role in stewardship and thinking about natural capital and centering concepts of reciprocity that both are giving humans and nature and relationality that there's a deep and sacred relationship between people and other elements of the world and a responsibility by humans to care for and enhance that natural capital. So I I was going to speak a little bit about ecosystem services as a concept that helps society value the impacts of both environmental degradation and environmental stewardship. And I think we've seen this used to great effect. I'm going to share an example from northwestern California Euro homelands that you can see in the photo. So if we're able to work uh intersectionally and across disciplines to assign values to clean water, clean air, uh offsetting carbon, we can incentivize stewardship and we can pay people for their loss of not developing or for their work to conserve what is saved. And that interdisciplinary work really comes to the four with complex measuring and monitoring frameworks. So, as some of the tribal members I work with have spoken to me, this idea of capital or ecosystem services is not necessarily one that comes from within their epistemologies, but it can create opportunities for reestablishing that guardianship as Kavika was speaking about. So as as many of you may know, we have a strong uh carbon market in California and the importance of uh there is a protocol for caring for forests in a way that sequesters carbon and this is a great opportunity for tribes within and outside of the state who may choose to engage with that market and can match their stewardship strategies to strategies that also sequester carbon. And a wonderful example of this comes from up north. But before I go there, just mentioning that this has been something that Native nations have been talking about for many years. This quote from the leader of the National Congress of American Indians is over 15 years old. Thinking critically about business opportunities that also enable landback stewardship, recognition of indigenous knowledge. And this report here on the right is brand new resource from the Partnerships for Tribal Carbon Solutions and other entities. So this just came out and is a important guide for indigenous peoples. So this is the example from up north from Euro homelands. Uh their lands um span a very large area and the reservation boundaries run from the Pacific at Rqua up to Witch Peek uh along the Clamoth River and to the intersection of the Clamoth and the Trinity. So while these are their recognized lands, much of the land was not within their ownership because of theft basically uh by timber companies and other concessions around the turn of the century. But by a complex collaboration using many different tools including carbon offsets, including new market tax credits and partnership with conservation entities and the state, they were able to purchase back almost 60,000 acres of their homelands. And part of that is in a a carbon offset structure in which they've committed to a hundred years of management under this protocol. But that management also matches their traditional values for how they care for this area. And there are some quotes from some tribal leadership about the importance of this land coming back into their stewardship through the use of a variety of tools including some of those I think you are speaking about here. I'll also move to the Caribbean to think through a context in which it didn't quite match. Uh in this case, I was invited to work with Gifa people on Euromain, the island of St. Vincent in the Eastern Caribbean. And for those who may not be familiar with Gifa people, they're indigenous Carob and Afro descendant. and they uh under underwent British and French oppression and colonialism were expelled from Euromain in the eastern side of the Caribbean, incarcerated for a time on the island of Baliso and then uh moved to Roatan on the coast off the coast of Honduras and then there are many communities of Germa people in Central America and in diaspora. This island of Balisto was what they invited me to work with them on trying to get it back. So this island like many in this region was privately owned. It actually had been owned by the same family for 120 years and they were looking to sell it and develop it and it had a price tag of 30 million. So this is a sacred area for Gifna peoples where their people were held when they were forced from their homeland. Many perished here. People returned here annually on a prayerful pilgrimage. So the process was try to try to think about what could we do to try to bring this land back into Griffin stewardship and care. And we talked about many different options. Working at the national level, working with private conservation. The idea of natural capital and ecosystem services was a little more challenging because the island is small and does not have a lot of resources in that sense. Uh we talked about conservation incentive agreements, concessions, debt for nature swaps, any type of uh example, and I published about this a little bit in Caribbean Quarterly. Ultimately, the public stepped in, the state stepped in and purchased the island and uh I don't know the details of the purchase, but it will now be preserved as a cultural historic site. But I bring this up because it's one of many examples of indigenous work to try to bring land back and land care back and sometimes we have to try to use a lot of creative strategies and they may not always uh come together. I will move now to speaking about fire. So this is an area where I spend a lot of time and this question of the beyond ecosystem services or beyond the concept of capital came to me from Bill Trip who's Karoo. You may have heard of him. He's been a leader in state policy in recognizing indigenousled uh fire and stewardship. And so he he talks about considering bringing fire back into land care, which has been used as a tool uh by indigenous peoples throughout California and other places in the world for generations until it was suppressed uh by by colonial forces. So he says think about bringing fire back as human services that benefit ecosystems and where do we center the human as providing a service and engaging in reciprocity with ecosystems. Uh so from indigenous perspectives the relationship of working with fire is very spiritual dates back to to uh traditional narratives that talk about the formation of the world and people's responsibilities to care for places. It's described in Australia and elsewhere as the law of the land. I have some photos from my friend uh Dr. Don Henkins who's at Chico State who has written beautifully on fire as the law of the land and and from some of our work with practitioners in California and in Australia. Uh you can't have everything you need as an indigenous person terms of baskets, medicine, food, ceremony without fire. Different uses of low inensity fire. With settler colonialism in California, there was active suppression of fire. Stopping people from burning was a critical component of the development of our state's policy. And this is the result you get. So, kind of different from what Kavika shared, but this is in northeastern uh California in my husband's homeland, Mount Maidu. And you can see that forest is very overgrown, very dense, and when there's a spark, uh it will just go up in flames. So, there's more to tell about this particular place, but uh indigenous stewardship was recognized here. people were able to go in and do some thinning. And in fact, the fire did move to lower intensity when a catastrophic fire came through this area in 2021. Um, but this land that I just showed within Maidu homelands is also under the jurisdiction of the US Forest Service. So very difficult to incorporate indigenous stewardship there and to get permission to do that work. And Dr. Lake uh talks about this. Why should people have to ask permission to burn in their homelands? So the idea of bringing back fire as a form of human services for ecosystems, a form of building natural capital by indigenous guardianship requires addressing this painful context of removal of separation of denial of a lack of recognition of indigenous agency and indigenous expertise. And that's what I advocate that we need to get back to in the space and think about what this idea of human services for ecosystem means. So a couple of reflections just quickly applying a framework of ecosystem services of valuing nature can be a tool for reestablishing indigenous jurisdiction. I think of it as towards environmental justice. But when I work with tribal members, often what I hear is reconsider even the concept of capital and think about the role of people as in service to ecosystems and in a process of reciprocity, relationship, responsibility and engagement. So I'll leave you with that. Thank you very much for having me. [applause] Thank you, Beth. Kavika, can you come back up? We don't have a ton of time before the break, but we're going to open the floor up for some questions because it's time for you all to have a chance to ask our speakers any questions that you might have. Hopefully we have some microphone runners. >> Indigenous guardianship. Thank you. I was curious about the term indigenous guardianship and how uh that might be different than like land ownership or land back. Uh thank you. >> Yeah, thank you for that question. C can folks hear me? >> We've got a wonderful sound team who turns my sound on and off. So just yeah making sure. Thanks guys. Um thank you for that question. So um first of all when we wanted to we we felt very early that there was a need for different terminology and uh part of this comes from right I' I've spent a lot of my life in conservation and when I think of the origins and and frameworks of conservation conservation comes from a place of recognizing that the way that the world was being approached was harmful. Things break down in the natural world and then conservation comes in to fix what gets broken. For our organization, for Neotero, what we wanted to elevate first and foremost was the ways in which indigenous people's interaction with the natural world isn't something where things have broken down and now they have to be repaired. Guardianship is about care for land and water in ways that have endured. So we wanted to pick we wanted to go for terminology that didn't start from the place of fixing something broken but holding up what has worked for time immemorial. Um and there's no perfect word for it. And one of the challenges we have as an international nonprofit is even if we picked something that felt perfect in the English language, then we'd have to translate it and there'd be issues as well. Um, so for us it's we're not saying that this is the the perfect terminology, but that different terminology is critical. So if we can organize conversations around guardianship and the fact that indigenous people's ways of caring for the world that we are in kinship has endured and needs to continue to endure, we believe we're making progress. >> If I could just speak to that a little as well. I think the slogan of landback is very powerful and energizing and speaks to justice but sometimes misses the context of care. that lambbeck is about relationality and caring for and carrying out traditional responsibilities. Also, sometimes I've seen the use of guardianship when a full transfer of ownership isn't possible for whatever reason, but there might be some situation of co-management or of an easement or of transfers of certain types of jurisdiction or authority. And finally, for some people's the idea of ownership is problematic. uh the idea of owning and so the idea of guardian being a guardian and caring for works more within uh that type of framework. >> Another question from the audience Taylor. >> Hi uh thanks to both of you. This is maybe mostly for Beth Rose. Um but I I'm really intrigued by the carbon markets and their use by the indigenous groups that you were describing. A lot of times um ecosystem services and payments for them are thought about just like commodifying nature or very instrumental what can nature do for us and can it make us money which has been criticized from indigenous perspectives as well. And then I noticed you talked about if it's consistent with their own approach then it's an a tool. Can you just talk more about that about how that tension can be thought about and resolved and the alignment assured just more please? >> Sure. I I think that's a a strong area of tension for some people. Um you know I've seen indigenous environmental networks work for example. For some, the idea of engaging with the carbon market is not appropriate. But for others, it has worked and Euro tribe was the first to engage in California's market and open the door for other tribes. I haven't checked um ARB's website lately, but at one point there were like 10 or 12 different tribes that were engaging and had had uh were selling offsets on the market. It's also highly specific though, so tribes that have forest lands or other natural resources that fit within a sequestration protocol can engage in that market. Others cannot. Uh so I think it really varies and it depends on the tribe's strategies and goals for guarding guardianship and in these cases it's worked as a win-win. that's both economic development, land back for some, and also um protecting forests and elevating indigenous stewardship as a way to sequester carbon. >> Yeah. And I I know this question mostly wasn't for me, but would just add to that, right, to say that um indigenous peoples are incredibly diverse. By the most conservative estimates, we're talking about thousands of peoples with with our own languages, our own worldviews, our own ways of life. Uh so we're going to have different opinions about things. That's why self-determination is so important. That's why free, prior, and informed consent uh which is an obligation um is so important as well, right? Um there's I believe there's no single solution that is going to work for everybody. Right? This is hard stuff. It is messy. It is complicated. And we're working with um an amazing amount of diversity and indigenous peoples, right? And this is part of right again this imperfect term of guardianship. Um, when you're talking and working with indigenous peoples regarding our ancestral land and water, you're talking about our elders, our kin, >> the things that are inextricably tied to our identity, our ancestry, and our way of life. So, if it doesn't work for us, we're going to let you know about that, right? It's it's going to be hard stuff. But it's really important that I I would say to come to it with respect and to work through those challenges with dialogue. And when we can make progress together, let's make progress together. >> I'm I've got conflicting signals here. Some people are telling me stop. It's time. We're over time. And some people are saying more questions. So, we're gonna go with one or two more questions. So, sorry I'm stealing a little bit from the break. If you if you are desperate for a break, you could sneak out. We won't yell at you, but we're going to take maybe two or three more questions. >> And for folks whose questions we can't take, I'm sure we would be happy to talk with you during the break as well. >> That's the beauty of a break. So, back here. Yeah. I I had a question about the one of the first statistics that was shown on the 1% of climate finance going to indigenous communities and this I guess this relates to the last discussion as well. How how can we think about what is the right benchmark there or is it just about ensuring that communities have access to that finance if they want it? Could you help us think about what's the right model for thinking about that and what's appropriate? >> Yeah. So what's what's the right number? maybe >> what's the right number? Or if it's not possible to have a number, what's the right frame? What does good look like for communities? >> Um I I tend to think of it in terms of practical application, right? Because we're we're partnering with indigenous nations, peoples and communities who are protecting their land. The work is real. The threats and challenges are real. In some cases, partners um that we uh work with are losing their lives in order to protect their land. Um so to me, practicality is really important. So um what's good is important, but I'm always trying to think about and know and move towards what's better, right? So if 1% is where or a little less than 1% is where we're at right now, um what would 5% look like? what would 50 for that matter, right? When and and kind of going back to the value statement, if indigenous peoples are doing so much with so little, um not just from an ethics perspective, but from the perspective of this is a human level challenge, all of us, if we're interested in the survivability of humanity for the future, we need to do a better job of caring for the environment. Right? So if we see this kind of effectiveness from indigenous peoples, not just cuz it's the right thing to do, but because we need it in order to survive, let's dial up the support, right? So um not to give you not to not give you an answer, but I think the important thing is that it moves very much in the right direction and the more the better. Frankly, I think what we've seen at NATO, we were told 8 years ago that if we raised money and got it to indigenous communities, indigenous peoples wouldn't be able to utilize it. We've proven that wrong and there's a ton more sort of uh capacity to absorb funding and do more and better work as well. >> Okay, we've been neglecting this side of the room. Thank you. First, I just want to say thank you so much for these presentations. They were remarkable and I think it's really good to ground everybody in the room in what we're talking about when you say that people are losing their lives and the struggle is real. Um, and so that brings me to an experience that I've been having where when we're working with sometimes the investment community. Um, and we're I almost feel like we're literally working in the cloud in like a totally different scale of of discussion. And we have these really great tools like digital twins where people are looking at landscapes and making decisions about investments for um renewables and and things like that. But then my experience has been that sometimes the people looking at the digital twin don't even know who's living on the land that they're selling to investors. And so I'm just wondering if you've had that experience and if there's anything that people in this room can do to kind of um reduce the gap sometimes between who lives on the land and who's selling the um capital. I'll just briefly say I think going to the place and walking the land with the people is critical and hearing their stories of what's happened there. Sometimes I feel there's a little bit of danger in talking about these positive uh outcomes from engaging in the carbon offset market because they were very positive for Europe for example and other tribes who've engaged but for some and other nations folks have been making decisions without the self-determination of indigenous peoples and sometimes resulted in removing them from land care. So I think we have to be really careful. I mean Euro was always at the table in articulating that this is their homeland, they're a sovereign nation. These are their land care priorities and they were able to engage on that level with the federal with the state government. But for other nations sometimes they're not in that conversation and so it's critical what Kavika was saying about indigenous self-determination and I think to that inperson engagement. >> Yeah. Yeah. I I agree. It'd be it'd be great if we could um magically move towards a world where if you don't understand the thing that you have ownership over, you don't get to decide what happens to it, right? But the reality the reality is we currently are where we currently are. And I think that's why uh kind of going back to one of the things I was saying, so much of the work that many of you are trying to do in in bridging worlds is really important, right? to to repair frameworks that clearly aren't working, maybe someday to retire those things, right? But to do it in a way that welcomes engagement and leads into respectful interaction uh with the people who haven't figured it out yet. Um that's that's um something I think that applies to the work that we do and applies to what you're trying to do as well. We've got to keep engaging. >> Yeah. just would also just say, what if we always thought about justice when we're engaged in these conversations and decisions? >> Yeah, >> thank you both so much. This has been amazing. And um I just want to say let's slay some monsters. >> Yes. >> Thank you all. Thank you.