The Indigenous Rewilding Network (IRN) is a consortium of Indigenous nations, NGOs, scientists, and individuals dedicated to rewilding at a continental scale. The Indigenous Rewilding Network emerged out of a collaboration between the Flower Hill Institute and The Buckminster Fuller Institute in 2023.

IRN consists of four interconnected components designed to support its mission:

• Landback Opportunities: The Network will facilitate the development of intertribal entities to receive title, steward land acquired by the Network or its partners, and support Tribal ventures on the land. This model is currently being piloted on a 50,000-acre parcel in Northern New Mexico.

• Indigenous Rewilding Institute: Serving as a technical assistance hub for Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)-informed stewardship practices, the Institute will provide education, training, and direct services to the intertribal landback entities and their land management staff.

• Indigenous Rewilding Fund: A regenerative blended finance vehicle that will capitalize land purchases, intertribal management entities, and economic ventures on returned lands.

• Indigenous Land Trust: This entity will hold and enforce conservation easements on returned lands (as well as other lands owned by cooperating parties) to expand the scope of Indigenous management and fund land purchases.

These components work together to catalyze the largest Indigenous land return movement in history by transitioning over 1 million acres of land across North America back to Indigenous stewardship. IRN builds coalitions and partnerships with Tribes, intertribal organizations, and supportive entities to maintain Indigenous leadership of these projects and further the visibility of landback and Indigenous-led rewilding efforts.

Through this support, we aim to catalyze a regenerative transformation of the lands and stewardship practices, restoring ecological function, bringing keystone species back from the brink of extinction and providing a template for land return and Indigenous management .

The Indigenous Rewilding Network is emerging at a moment where there is increasing recognition of the magnitude of the ecological crisis facing humanity. While many challenges remain, many Indigenous communities are better positioned than ever to reclaim stewardship roles over lands and resources, and there is growing domestic and international support for the diversification of environmental management and restoring the role that Indigenous communities have played in maintaining the health and wellbeing of natural systems.

Amidst this crisis moment, the leadership of Indigenous communities practicing both traditional and contemporary ecological stewardship methods is needed now more than ever. The current socio-political climate offers a fertile ground for initiatives like this one to gain substantial support and resources, while also contributing to reconciliation and healing by addressing historical injustices through the restoration of Indigenous lands and stewardship. Establishing the network now taps into these dynamics, setting the stage for a rethought stewardship paradigm that is more holistic, just, and effective.