Ramapough Culture and Land Foundation

Living on these lands for thousands of years Munsee Lunaape and their ancestors built and maintained a massive network of trails and markers to physically and spiritually navigate their relationship to this land. Cairns cradle rocks compass stones balance boulders viewing seats and ceremonial complexes help the stewards of this land nurture balance between the living and their spirit ancestors Mother Earth and the Sky Beings and the people and the land. This already encroached upon cultural resource is under severe further threat from exurban development artifact-hunting and the sheer lack of awareness. This work is a necessary part of the Ramapough peoples' efforts to restore cultural and environmental balance back to the region and to heal themselves from centuries of dispossession and persecution. Picaro Mann to devise a strategy for recognizing Indigenous local knowledge traditions and collaborating with scholars community organizations and the general public. This is an essential step towards launching a broader campaign to raise awareness about the Munsee Lunaape landscape to encourage further research and preservation efforts. This work will help restore Native cultures in New Jersey to their rightful prominence and help non-Natives develop more sustainable and spiritually-viable relationships to the land. Over the last few years Picaro Mann has been codifying knowledge she inherited from her ancestors communications from the stones themselves and archival and academic material she has gathered from scholars and local experts. Over the course of this work the land has revealed to her that Munsee Lunaape CSLs are far more extensive than many realize and that it requires immediate protection. Generations of Ramapough people have painstakingly preserved this irreplaceable knowledge system on their own. The land now requests the help of others before too much more is lost. Picaro Mann to develop best practices and protocols for bringing these cultural landscapes to public attention. We will help her connect the Ramapough people with historians archeologists local experts and a variety of other stakeholders to develop a Native-centered strategy for the stewardship study and interpretation of this precious cultural resource. This will assist the Ramapough and other Indigenous groups assert their rightful places as stewards for the study and interpretation of their cultural patrimony. Picaro Mann has conducted field survey of the "Middle Forty" on the Delaware River around the sacred Minisink Island area. The work consists of GPS documentation with descriptions photos and deed research. Education outreach and partnerships with Historical societies environmental organizations all stakeholders who want preservation of land and culture as is. The proposal to re designation scenic river and waterways nation designation to NPS National Park Service will threaten our as is land and culture.

Environmental justice land stewardship funding through water and land injustice. 45,000

Food land and justice a partnership of Decolonizing wealth Project. The 50,000 is provided for general operating support.