Indian Land Tenure Foundation

General program:the Indian Land Tenure Foundation (iltf) continues to reach out to native american communities and the general public to broaden their understanding of the complex issues of Land ownership in Indian country. Among these activities are grant-making, presenting at conferences and other gatherings, distribution of our relevant publications, outreach through social media and program update reports as well as through the Foundation's website. The Foundation takes an active role working with native nations addressing issues by hosting regional meetings, meeting with federal officials, and other outreach to tribal leaders. The 2021 online outreach continued during 2022 through ongoing webinars and posted content to reach tribal community members for a constituency that appreciates the convenience of this format.specific outreach efforts include offering continuing legal education (cle) courses and the tribal Land professionals certification program, estate planning and will writing, directly addressing fractional ownership issues on allotted lands, carbon credit markets; and developing and presenting lessons of our Land curriculum information to teachers, school administrators, students, and tribal elders, leaders, and other citizens.

Native nation rebuilding:iltf established a designated fund for the native governance center (ngc), a 501(c)(3), that focuses on training and informing tribal governments on building the Foundation of nation building through policy and governmental functions. Native nation rebuilding fund makes distributions that support ngc and its work on the management of reservation planning and lands. The ngc and iltf are planning several joint efforts to expand the reach of both organizations in 2023.

National Indian carbon coalition:the national Indian carbon coalition (nicc) works to build capacity for indigenous-led carbon sequestration projects that include tribal nations, Alaska native villages & corporations, native Hawaiian organizations, and first nations in canada. Nicc has received philanthropic dollars to establish the revolving project fund, which advances our efforts significantly towards building nicc's longer-term support for indigenous projects. Nicc conducts all of the supporting work on indigenous lands as the project proponent and continues to partner with the indigenous organization for a forty (40) year duration. This removes the significant burden of project management from the indigenous organization, thus assuring long-term benefits to indigenous communities.there is significant demand for carbon projects on indigenous lands and this funding will allow nicc to build our internal capacity to respond in the most effective ways possible. Nicc is a trusted resource, and a critical bridge that enables the development of successful projects on indigenous lands that may not otherwise happen due to the significant capital, time and capacity investment needed to secure and develop projects. The environmental impact of these projects will be tracked using an efficient, transparent system, along with a robust forest certification.

Conservation innovation:nicc has been awarded two (2) usda-nrcs conservation innovation grants one each in 2021 and the other in 2022. Under the 2021 funding, nicc and its partners, is developing a new approach to tribal working lands conservation. The goal of this project is to develop and pilot an operational web-based tool to assess and quantify the co-benefits of enhanced land-based carbon sequestration produced through ecosystem conservation and restoration activities on tribal lands. We will produce open source online-mapping tools for use by partner tribes to assess natural resource assets, including carbon, and will introduce a new framework and metrics for quantification and valuation of the co-benefits of protecting these assets. We will work with partner native american tribes to develop long-term conservation, sustainability, and climate resilience strategies that meet their unique ecological and cultural values. The tool will allow for the quantification and valuation of these resources for the co-benefits of sustained air quality, water quality, water supply, wildlife habitat, cultural values, and more. These values can then be more explicitly recognized to increase the monetary value of carbon offsets in the voluntary marketplace derived from greenhouse gas mitigation activities on tribal lands. Current standards in the voluntary carbon offset marketplace recognize the importance of co-benefits but have yet to fully and formally incorporate these values into verified offset projects. Greenhouse gas mitigation through the protection of healthy ecosystems and working lands offers more than the monetization of carbon, and we will be the first to offer co-benefits valuation metrics to the voluntary carbon marketplace. The 2021 funding, nicc and its partners, have seen a proliferation of agricultural carbon markets. If successful, these programs have the potential to make positive climate impacts, improve or restore local ecological resources, and increase incomes through the creation of a new carbon crop. This project seeks to ensure that native american farmers and ranchers have access to nrcs programs and services for conservation that can lead to benefit from the highest-quality carbon credits and that agricultural production systems common on tribal lands have strong local demonstrations to catalyze adoption. Agricultural carbon markets have the potential to provide rural communities with both ecological and economic benefits. Recent years have seen a proliferation of programs in this space. Without direct involvement, however, there is risk that native american farmers and ranchers may not benefit from these programs either because of a lack of information tailored to them, or because programs may not include some of the practices or regions most common three among them. This funding enables native american farmers and ranchers' access to high-quality, third-party verified carbon credits and promote ecologically restorative agricultural practices.the recently approved soil enrichment protocol (sep) by the climate action reserve provides a new standard for agricultural carbon markets that enables scale and rigor. Demonstration sites showing the benefits of nrcs conservation practices and showing the economic benefit of participation in agricultural carbon markets can increase awareness of climate smart agriculture and reduce barriers to participation of native american producers and growers in nrcs conservation practices. Nicc has identified tribal-owned or individually owned farmland for these demonstrations, ensuring the benefits of this agreement enrich tribal producers and enable access to carbon markets beyond the direct recipients of this grant's benefits. One set of demonstrations sites will highlight the effects on the Land due to grazing practice changes. This project will also establish cropland demonstration sites with native american farmers that serve as demonstrations of the potential for regenerative agricultural practices, such as cover crops and no-till, while also providing an educational resource for native american growers and agronomists to increase access to and benefit from the largest, established program implementing the sep at scale, carbon by indigo as well as increase awareness and participation in nrcs programs such as eqip. The outcome of this grant helps inform the effects of regenerative farming practices to local producers and farmers as well as aid in lowering or remove barriers to access carbon markets for native american farmers and ranchers. Beyond the carbon market benefits, farmers and ranchers implementing these conservation grazing practices would improve wildlife habitat and decrease erosion and other environmental risks from conventional farming and grazing practices.