Native Conservancy Land Trust

The Native Conservancy Land Trust was established as a federally recognized non-profit organization in 2003 and is based in Cordova, Alaska.

The Native Conservancy’s mission and purposes:

(a) To protect, preserve, and restore ancestral lands, waters, and ecological resources of Indigenous peoples, by acquiring fee title to land, and managing conservation easements in order to accomplish this purpose;
(b) To restore and protect legal access of Native peoples to ancestral lands for cultural, ecological, spiritual, recreational, educational, subsistence, and sovereignty purposes;
(c) To assist in establishment, networking, and land acquisition for local tribal land trusts; and
(d) To consult and work with governmental, tribal, and private agencies on conservation issues as they pertain to Native peoples, and generally to promote the responsible use of land and water resources in order to serve the cultural, ecological, scenic, economical, recreational, and spiritual needs of  Native communities.

The Native Conservancy’s board members:

Sarah James
President
A member of the Gwich'in Nation from Arctic Village, Alaska, on the southern border of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Sarah James is a leading voice in the struggle to protect the Arctic Refuge from oil development and to defend the rights of her people.

Pamela Smith
Secretary / Treasurer
Pamela Smith is Native Eyak, born and raised on ancestral lands bordering the Prince William Sound and Copper River Delta in Cordova, Alaska.  Once a commercial fisher, she is now an inspirational activist for Native Rights and the preservation of Eyak culture and ancestral lands.

Dune Lankard
Interim Executive Director / Founder
Dune Lankard, Native Eyak of the Eagle clan from Cordova, Alaska, is board member Pamela Smith’s brother. Dune’s impassioned commitment to protecting Eyak culture and ancestral lands was fostered by their grandmother’s and mother’s strong community leadership during his upbringing. Dune was a full-time commercial fisher until the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989.  Since that time, Dune has worked full-time to protect hundreds of thousands of acres of pristine temperate rainforest, and to preserve Eyak culture, heritage and a subsistence way of life.

Winona LaDuke
Board member
Winona LaDuke, an Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) enrolled member of the Mississippi Band Anishinaabeg, lives and works on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota.  She is the mother of three children, the Executive Director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, and the Program Director for the Honor the Earth Fund.

The Native Conservancy Land Trust is a 501(c)(3) organization: 30-0131766