Indigenous Rewilding Network

The Indigenous Rewilding Network (IRN) aims to rewild landscapes, build Indigenous power, and reintroduce keystone species. The IRN develops and catalyzes opportunities for land return and rewilding, and provides financial and technical support for existing Indigenous-led landback and rewilding efforts. Rewilding is not just about restoring land, plants, and animals; rewilding invites us to transform our systems, guided by the principles of effective Indigenous stewardship and interconnectedness.

Indigenous Rewilding Network

The Indigenous Rewilding Network (IRN) is led by Flower Hill Institute and has been launched with ongoing support from the BFI Design Lab. The IRN works to identify and develop opportunities for land return and rewilding, providing critical support to Indigenous-led initiatives.

  • Indigenous Rewilding Fund: A regenerative blended finance vehicle that capitalizes land purchases, supports intertribal management entities, and funds economic ventures on returned lands.
  • Indigenous Rewilding Institute: A technical assistance hub for Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)-informed stewardship practices, providing education, training, and direct services to intertribal landback entities and their land management staff.
  • Indigenous Land Trust: An entity that holds and enforces conservation easements on returned lands and other lands owned by cooperating parties, expanding the scope of Indigenous management and supporting land purchases.

The 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.

The IRN aims 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 IRN is bringing together a coalition to transition a large parcel of land in the Southwest to Indigenous stewardship, who would lead rewilding, restoration, stewardship, and regenerative efforts, which will include managing and growing the existing population of wild American Bison. Bringing bison herds back to grasslands at scale catalyzes a cascade of ecological benefits, pivotal for both the health of these ecosystems and their biodiversity. Healthy bison herds also foster ecological connectivity, establishing wildlife corridors that facilitate species migration and genetic diversity. Returning these lands and their bison to Indigenous stewardship also takes critical steps toward restoring the historical and cultural fabric of Indigenous communities for whom the bison is a symbol of profound ecological and spiritual significance. This pilot project will serve as a template for transitioning land to integrated Indigenous stewardship, economic, ecological, and cultural.

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