Legal and Policy Approaches to Protecting Indigenous Lifeways and Homelands

Panel Title

Legal and Policy Contexts for Stewarding Indigenous Land and Sacred Sites

Presenter Name

Beth Rose Middleton Manning PhD, University of California DavisFollow

Presenter Bio

Professor of Native American Studies at UC Davis

Beth Rose’s research centers on Native environmental policy and Native activism for site protection using conservation tools, and her broader research interests include intergenerational trauma and healing, rural environmental justice, Indigenous analysis of climate change, African and Indigenous intersections in the Americas, and qualitative GIS. She is committed to participatory research that contributes to social justice, and to increasing underrepresented voices in academia and policy. Beth Rose received her BA in Nature and Culture from UC Davis, and her Ph.D. in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management from UC Berkeley. She is the author of two books: Trust in the Land: New Directions in Tribal Conservation (University of Arizona Press 2011), which focuses on Native applications of conservation easements and land trust structures, and Upstream (University of Arizona Press, 2018), on the history of Indian allotment lands at the headwaters of the California State Water Project. She has published on Native economic development, political ecology and healing, Federal Indian law as environmental policy, the history of the environmental justice movement, using environmental laws for Indigenous rights, applying market-based conservation tools to meet Indigenous goals, addressing challenges to cultural site protection in California and St. Vincent & the Grenadines, and Indigenous-led adaptations to climate change. She is currently working on several climate adaptation and environmental health-related projects in collaboration with Indigenous peoples in California and beyond.

Presentation Description

From International legal tools to state-level policy and planning processes, to recognized national conservation mechanisms, and tribal jurisdictional innovations, this talk will explore several creative opportunities and inspiring precedents for protecting and affirming Indigenous rights and responsibilities to homelands.

Affiliated Organizations or Universities

University of California, Davis

Link to Website(s)

Beth Rose Middleton Manning with UC Davis

Presenter Photo