Third Annual Environmental Justice Conference Highlights Indigenous Perspectives at Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve ('Ootchamin 'Ooyakma) and Around the Globe

The Environmental Justice Through the Lens of Indigenous Peoples Conference was held at Stanford University on June 2-3, 2025. Doerr School Associate Dean for Integrative Initiatives on Environmental Justice and Jasper Ridge affiliate Rodolfo Dirzo conceived and hosted the conference. This event was organized by the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) and Doerr School of Sustainability as part of their recurring, year-long conference series on sustainability in the environmental and business sectors. In his opening remarks, Rodolfo stressed the importance of working across cultures and perspectives if we are to solve the ongoing biodiversity crisis. He offered a global perspective on the cultural and biological contributions from an estimated 500 million Indigenous people around the world. Climate change, overexploitation, and development are threats to both animal populations and Indigenous lifeways. This necessitates a multi-species framework to consider and address environmental injustice. Several staff from Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve ('Ootchamin 'Ooyakma) attended and here we share highlights from the program that intersected with the preserve.

The Stanford campus and Jasper Ridge sit on the ancestral lands of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe. We were fortunate to have Muwekma Ohlone Culture Bearers Joey Torres and Richard Torres open the conference with their storytelling and land acknowledgement. “We stand firm in our right to exist on these landscapes,” expressed Joey. With his young nephew Josiah Dominguez, who goes by Yaya, by his side, Joey read a message from Tribal Chairwoman Charlene Njimeh. Her words highlighted the long-held relationship between the Tribe and Stanford. He then emphasized engaging the next generation in restoring access to ancestral lands, and challenged the Stanford community of scholars to use their influence to work towards this shared goal.

Tribal Chairman Ron Goode of the North Folk Mono Tribe stressed the importance of sovereignty at the onset of his talk, which is the exercise of one’s inherent rights. His presentation on cultural burning showed that even in times of drought, fire is a tool to sustain new growth and healthful ecosystems. This work is supported by “the only master agreement in the nation that says we can engage in cultural burning.” Ron works tirelessly with Indigenous peoples at the national and international levels to expand their own capacity for cultural burning. The day before the conference, Chairman Goode visited Jasper Ridge with Chairwoman Nijmeh and several other members of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe to initiate collaboration. Ron is generously serving as the Muwekma’s adviser for their effort to revitalize cultural burning using the preserve.

Day One concluded with a panel on the Klamath Dam removal and watershed restoration (Fig. 1), and their work to recast the removal as eco-cultural revitalization. “Indigenous knowledge on the Klamath River brought the dam down,” shared Ron Reed of the Karuk Tribe. Sibyl Diver, Environmental Justice Working Group co-director and lecturer in Earth Systems Program, emphasized that the project was a model for co-produced work and working across silos. The panel detailed the extensive focus groups, outreach, activism, and studies on watershed health impacts that contributed to watershed restoration. John R. Oberholzer Dent of the Karuk Tribe Water Quality Program showed a year of tribal-collected data on watershed health since dam removal. New results show that dissolved oxygen quickly increased after dam removal, and substantive reduction in the toxin microcystin. Daniel Sarna-Wojcicki highlighted the indigenous contribution to lead and participate in the project’s environmental assessment, including extensive focus group co-design and participants. Dan featured several testimonials from youth that spoke to the cultural importance of a healthy river. As we concluded the program for the day, Dan returned to the theme of stewarding for the next generation. Jasper Ridge staff connected with the panel speakers afterwards who graciously shared lessons learned that will be relevant to the future modification of Searsville Dam.

On Day Two of the conference, we heard from Stanford colleagues who have long been friends and partners of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe and Jasper Ridge (Fig. 2). Laura Jones, Director Of Heritage Services And University Archaeologist, described her four decades of collaboration with Indigenous communities. Framing her presentation around time, she expressed that justice doesn’t always take a linear path. She reflected on the role of power: where it originates, and how it can be leveraged. Figuring out how to extend and embed power into networks with shared values has been a key part of her praxis. Michael Wilcox, Senior Lecturer of Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, shared his experience with Indigenous archaeology and innovative inter-cultural education programs. Colonization’s impact has constrained the agency of Indigenous people and personhood, and excluded Indigenous knowledge from current land management in the U.S. and around the world. Michael underscored the importance of place-based work, that history and connection with the land cannot be ignored if we are to be good stewards. He advocated for using existing systems, even deeply problematic ones with colonial origins, to do good.

We heard about youth involvement in research- and TEK-informed co-stewardship from Alexii Sigona, Ph.D. candidate in Environmental Science, Policy, & Management at UC Berkeley and a member of Amah Mutsun Tribal Band (Fig. 3). Alexii works with the Amah Mutsun Land Trust youth stewardship programs. Landscape history research has shown evidence for coastal prairie maintenance by Indigenous people. This informs AMLT's restoration practices today to remove encroaching Douglas Fir and propagate native coastal prairie plants that provide food, medicine, and cultural connection. In testimonials from tribal members engaged in this work, Alexii heard an overwhelmingly positive response on how meaningful these experiences were for the participants.

The program then transitioned to Jasper Ridge's steps towards two-eyed seeing, which is the complementary use of Indigenous and Western sciences. Bernadette Quiroz, Language Revitalization Chair for the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, shared that “land is a living relative” and how the Muwekma Youth Campout at the preserve was meaningful for her (Fig. 4). Her six-year-old daughter danced with the Tribe for her second time at this event, illustrating how youth were empowered to connect with their ancestral lands and learn from their Elders. It was powerful to hear the story of our recent initiatives through her eyes, including Campout and pile burning, and the impact they had on her family.

Jasper Ridge Faculty Director Tadashi Fukami followed with more details on the fuel reduction project, sharing how the first morning of the pile burning project started with blessings offered by Joey Torres and Chairwoman Charlene Nijmeh. Months later, we observed that controlled fire had awakened Western Bewildering Bushmallow from the seed bank. Tad drew the analogy that this represented the Tribe’s revitalization and return to their ancestral land. We have since observed how intentional burning encouraged other biota to flourish, including yerba santa, elderberry, and an increase in variable checkerspot caterpillars that is currently under study. Tad credited the development of his own understanding of two-eyed seeing to learning alongside students in his BIO 35N “Catching up with TEK” seminar. He asked the audience to continually correct him, reinforcing a theme of the conference that we are all lifelong students and learners.

Over the two days of the Environmental Justice conference, we heard so many Indigenous voices from around the world (Fig. 5). There is clearly widespread momentum to promote and center Indigeneity in research, stewardship, and education. The Jasper Ridge staff and the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe have been working towards this shared goal, another example of how the preserve continues to be a place-based lens for global issues.