INDIGENOUS LED

Buffalo Beyond Borders opened rooted in ceremony. 🦬✨ We gathered from across Turtle Island dedicated to the restoration of our collective relative: Buffalo, Iyane’e, Iinnii, Tatanka. We gathered dedicated to putting vision and dreams in action; dedicated to working at a continental scale, bridging the imposed borders that keep us divided. 🌎 In a time shaped by walls and division, this work is relational, radical, transformational. Through danza, collaging, sculpting, music, poetry, and spoken word, we created our shared vision. Art a shared language that helped us all was remember: rematriation in motion, healing in action. 🌱 Deep gratitude to Lucille Contreras and the Texas Tribal Buffalo Project, our elders, facilitators, and everyone who brought this space to life. ❤️‍🔥 As the buffalo return, the land remembers. And so do we. Together. United. Healed. 🦋 📸: @vanessavelphotography   . . . . #buffalo #buffalobeyondborders #sanantonio #rematriation

Join us as we open Buffalo Beyond Borders in San Antonio! 🦬 Opening Reception:
Monday, April 13 | 6–9 pm
Drury Plaza Hotel Riverwalk Rio Grande Ballroom An evening of opening ceremony, Danza Azteca/Mexica, art, food, and community as we begin Buffalo Beyond Borders 2026! Open to the public. All are welcome. . . . . #BuffaloBeyondBorders #Buffalo #SanAntonio #Danza #Indigenous

Today on International Beaver Day, we honor our relative, the beaver, a true ecosystem engineer. 🦫 Beaver shape entire landscapes through their presence. Their dams slow and store water, restore wetlands, create habitat for countless species, and help heal lands impacted by drought and extraction. Where beaver return, water returns. Life returns. 🌾 For generations, Indigenous peoples have understood beaver not as resources, but as relatives and teachers. They show us what it means to live in right relationship with water, to build in ways that sustain life beyond our own, and to care for the places that care for us. 🌎 🎥: @ronan_donovan . . . . #beaver #internationalbeaverday #relativesnotresources #ecosystemengineers #indigenousled

Spring reminds us that movement is natural. The birds return, herds follow ancient paths, salmon journey back to their home waters, and the land awakens in renewal. In this season of migration, we remember that returning, transforming, and moving are the rhythms of our Mother Earth and part of life itself.🪻🦬🪻 In the Northern Hemisphere, the Spring Equinox marks a moment of balance, when day and night meet as equals and a new cycle begins. It is a time of emergence and renewal, as seeds take root, waters flow, and relatives move along their ancient paths. 🌿 We offer this prayer as we step into the season: “Earth teach me renewal… as the seed that rises in the spring. Earth teach me to forget myself… as melted snow forgets its life. Earth teach me to remember kindness… as dry fields weep with rain.” — Ute prayer What is ready to grow within you? What are you being called to nurture forward? 🌱 Read more in our Spring 2026 Newsletter. Link in Bio. . . . . #SpringEquinox #Spring #Bison #MotherEarth 📸: grynold

FINAL CALL 📣 Registration closes March 31st! Join us in San Antonio (April 13–17) for Buffalo Beyond Borders 2026. A gathering of Indigenous leaders, scientists, policy advocates, and partners working to restore buffalo across North America. 🦬 The herd is growing. SIGN UP to submit a Lightning Round presentation: Share your work, research, or stories in a low-pressure, fast-paced format. • 5 minutes
• No formal Q&A
• Built-in networking time ⚡️ Submit at the link in bio. 🔗 Register: bit.ly/BBBTX2026 (also in bio) . . . . #BuffaloRestoration #IndigenousLeadership #Conservation #Bison #ClimateSolutions

☠️ California condors and other dark scavenger birds get labeled as “death vibes” all the time. Admittedly, it’s easy to judge ‘em like that. But the Yurok (@theyuroktribe ) see it differently. They recognize that scavengers bring no death into the world. They just clean things up. That’s it. No harm, no violence, just balance. And that’s why the California condor is celebrated, not denigrated. Pure spirit. Generous role. But today, it’s one of the rarest birds in the world. We recently traveled with the Nez Perce (@npt1855 ) to visit the Yurok. They generously shared tons of insights from their successful California condor restoration program with us. That knowledge, along with $500k in new funding from Colossal, is now helping the Nez Perce start their own effort to return condors to Hells Canyon. 🎥 Watch the film on YouTube now. 🔗 Link in bio.

A bird resting on a buffalo is not a coincidence. It reflects a reciprocal relationship. In Indigenous ways of knowing, buffalo are relatives whose lives support many others, shaping grasslands and nourishing the land. 🪶🦬 Their loss was not only ecological but relational. Their return restores kinship, memory, and balance. When relationship is honored, life gathers and the land remembers how to hold us all. 🎥: @chrissyshammasphoto . . . . #Buffalo #Relationship #Bird #IndigenousStories #Ecosystem

The story of the Gullah Geechee is a story of Indigenous knowledge carried across water and rooted in land. Agricultural expertise, ecological understanding, and cultural memory shaped entire landscapes and economies while sustaining community and identity. Recognizing this history restores authorship and reminds us that land stewardship and cultural knowledge have always been intertwined. . . . . #GullahGeechee #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackLiberation #IndigenousSovereignty

The California condor is an ancient giant that once shared the skies with woolly mammoths. Then it nearly disappeared. By the 1980s, only 23 were left on Earth. This is the story of how it survived, why it’s sacred, and who’s bringing it back. 📺 Watch the full film on YouTube 🔗 Link in bio

In Indigenous ways of knowing, the red fox is more than wildlife. They are a relative who helps keep ecosystems in balance. By regulating small mammal populations, foxes protect grasslands, forests, and plants many other species depend on. They help shape soil health, seed dispersal, and food webs across the landscape. Honoring keystone relatives like the red fox reminds us that caring for one life supports many, and that balance is built through reciprocity. 📸: @chrissyshammasphoto . . . . #RedFox #KeystoneRelatives #Fox #Ecosystems #Relative

For Black History Month, we are honored to share “Braided Prophecy: Passed & Present” by Phoenix “PHNX” Amaterasu (@phnx.wav ). 🎨 Blending poetry, string, paint, and collage, this original mixed media work tells a story of lineage, resilience, and responsibility. The piece reflects our shared relationship to the cosmos, the sun, the land, and one another, honoring elders, caregivers, warriors, and youth as keepers of memory and seed carriers for the future. 🌱 PHNX created this work as a reflection on Afro-Indigenous identity, belonging, and wholeness. It speaks to the deep knowledge carried through our lineages and the reality that our DNA does not separate, even when colonial systems attempt to divide or other us. For many Afro-Indigenous people navigating diaspora and recognition, belonging can feel contested or conditional. This piece affirms that we already belong and that unity must be cultivated not only in community, but within ourselves. 🫱🏻‍🫲🏽 🖤 🤎 Braided through Black and Indigenous generations, our truths endure beyond violence, beyond forgetting, beyond time. 🌌 “Their knives can’t cut the truth. 
It’s braided deep into these roots 
that our seeds are tucked into, 
for generations to bear its fruit.” 
— Phoenix Amaterasu (@phnx.wav ) Explore the collage in high resolution, listen to the audio version of the poem, and learn more about the layers of symbolism woven throughout the piece at the link in @indigenous_led ’s bio. 🔗 . . . . #BlackHistoryMonth #MixedMedia #BlackLiberationIndigenousSovereignty #AfroIndigenous #ArtAsResistance

🦬 Registration is now open for Buffalo Beyond Borders 2026! 🦬 Join us in San Antonio, April 13–17, for a week of relationship-building, learning, and collective action in support of buffalo restoration. This gathering brings together Indigenous leaders, partners, scientists, policy advocates, and relatives to reconnect with buffalo, land, and one another, and to move shared work forward across science, policy, and narrative change. This year, we are honored to partner with the Texas Tribal Buffalo Project (@texastribalbuffaloproject ), with a field day at their recently rematriated Floresville ranch of 150 acres, to visit their Buffalo herd and learn directly from their wisdom and lived experience. 🌾 If you know individuals, organizations, or communities who feel called to this work, please share this gathering with them. Buffalo Beyond Borders is rooted in collaboration, and we welcome all who want to walk this path together. ✨ More details at the link in bio. We look forward to gathering soon. . . . . #BuffaloBeyondBorders #IndigenousLed #TexasTribalBuffaloProject #Buffalo #Rematriation