Many years ago, my wise friend Marie-Helene Laraque-Paulette was talking about traditional indigenous knowledge and how incorporating it into policy could help repair our society’s relationship with the natural world – but few others were. So when I saw this story from the Yale 360 Environment review – How Returning Lands to Native Tribes Is Helping Protect Nature, I immediately thought how pleased she would have been to see that link so clearly stated.

It is a story that brings together so many other current themes – rewilding the land by restoring apex predators like bison, recognizing the natural connections among species (think ‘mother trees’), understanding traditional indigenous land management techniques including cool burning, using regenerative agriculture techniques, thinking seven generations ahead when making decisions – that we are increasingly recognizing as crucial in conserving the natural world around us. It also is a key part of reconciliation.