Tribal Partnerships Program
Badger-Two Medicine. (Rebecca Drobis for Earthjustice)
(415) 217-2000
Email Tribal Partnerships Program
Media Inquiries
Timna Axel
Public Affairs and Communications Strategist
(773) 828-0712
taxel@earthjustice.org
Legal Assistance Inquiries
Contacto de Prensa
Robert Valencia
Estratega de Comunicaciones y Asuntos PĂşblicos Hispanos/Latinos
rvalencia@earthjustice.org
(212) 845-7376
Legal Alerts Email Listserv
For Tribes and Indigenous communities and affiliated in-house counsel interested in alerts on government notices, public comment periods, and more. Sign up.
Who We Are
Earthjustice’s Tribal Partnerships Program fights to ensure our Tribal and Indigenous clients’ natural and cultural resources are protected for future generations. See bar admissions for our attorneys.
Laura BerglanSenior Attorney
Caitlyn BrandtLitigation Assistant
Gussie LordManaging Attorney
Robert LundbergAssociate Attorney
Stefanie TsosieSenior Attorney
Our Impact
Earthjustice has a long history of partnering with Tribes, Native groups, and Indigenous communities to ensure their natural and cultural resources are protected for future generations. Today, as Native peoples lead from the frontlines of many pivotal environmental fights, our Tribal Partnerships Program is proud to continue that tradition.
Tribes and Indigenous communities and affiliated in-house counsel can receive email alerts and monthly summaries of government notices, public comment periods, and sign on opportunities for litigation and legislation through the Tribal Partnerships Program’s email listserv.
Partnering with Indigenous Communities from Coast to Coast
From Alaska to Arizona and Hawaiʻi to Wisconsin, we are honored to partner with and represent more than 70 Tribes and Indigenous communities fighting to protect their water, safeguard public and tribal land, oppose destructive extractive industries, and preserve their culture and way of life. Earthjustice and the Tribal Partnerships Program will continue to fight efforts to impair or destroy tribal or Indigenous lands, resources, or areas of cultural significance.
Elevating Indigenous Voices and Applying Indigenous Knowledge
In addition, we will continue to elevate Indigenous voices on the frontlines of environmental degradation and destruction, and to support traditional land and wildlife management practices, which are crucial tools in our fight to combat climate change. “A lot of Tribes are innovators,” explains Senior Attorney Stefanie Tsosie. “Earthjustice can be innovators with them and help elevate their voices, especially in the times we see now.”
Highlights of Our Work:
- Alongside the Biodiversity Defense Program and Midwest Office, we are representing six Ojibwe Tribes in a lawsuit against the state of Wisconsin for its planned November 2021 wolf hunt, claiming the proposed hunt violates the Tribes’ treaty rights. Learn more.
- Earthjustice attorneys in Alaska protect the Tongass National Forest, public lands of the Western Arctic, the Chukchi Sea, and countless rivers and streams that have supported subsistence practices of Alaska Native people for generations. Learn more.
- Attorneys in the Northern Rockies Office defend the Badger-Two Medicine region, sacred to the Blackfeet Nation, from oil and gas drilling first proposed in 1982. Learn more.
- The Rocky Mountain Office continues to fight to protect off-reservation cultural resources of the Tohono O’odham, Pascua Yaqui, and Hopi Tribes from the destruction of hardrock mining. Learn more.
- Our Mid-Pacific Office in Hawaiʻi has long stood with Native Hawaiian communities to uphold rights to cultural access and resources and to establish legal principles that water is a public trust, which specifically protects Native water rights. Learn more.
- Attorneys in the Northwest Office represent the Yurok Tribe in its fight to ensure flows in the Klamath River are adequate to protect salmon habitat and the Tribe’s ancient spiritual and subsistence practices. Learn more.
- Earthjustice attorneys represented the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in their fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Learn more.