Today's guest is Cris Stainbrook, President of the Indian Land Tenure Foundation (ILTF).
ILTF is a national community-based organization serving Indian nations and Indian people in the recovery and control of their rightful homelands. They work to promote education, increase cultural awareness, create economic opportunity, and reform the legal and administrative systems that prevent Indian people from owning and controlling reservation lands. The organization has provided over $98 million of grants, loans and services over the past 20 years.
In today’s episode, we cover:
- An overview of the Indian Land Tenure Foundation (ILTF)
- How the organization came to be and its mission to restore rightful land ownership of 90 million acres
- Cris' personal climate journey
- His background in fisheries biology and transition to Indian land
- The role of the federal government in Indian land ownership
- The Dawes General Allotment Act
- ILTF's tactics at the beginning and how they've changed over time
- Importance of education for Indian history and land issues
- The organization's theory of change and how they measure progress
- Changes on tribal land related to climate
- How climate impacts day-to-day life of tribal members
- How the tribes became interested in carbon markets and some of the issues they're working to overcome
- The Indian Land Capital Company, a CDFI subsidiary of ILTF
- Buyer incentives for the tribe's carbon credits
- The National Indian Carbon Coalition and its assessment of additionality credits, setting prices, finding buyers, etc.
- What Cris sees as the biggest barriers to moving forward on climate change
- His thoughts on government's role in solving certain issues
- Cris' message to listeners both in terms of the problem of climate change and Indian lands
Enjoy the show!
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Episode recorded June 30, 2022.
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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant