Office

Tribal Partnerships Program

Badger-Two Medicine. (Rebecca Drobis for Earthjustice)

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.

Listen to a conversation with attorneys Gussie Lord and Stefanie Tsosie on their work.

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 HawaiĘ»i 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.

Recent News
March 8, 2024 In the News: The Detroit Metro Times

Tribes urge U.S. to weigh in on Line 5 case as appeal sits in court

Stefanie Tsosie, Attorney, Tribal Partnerships Program: “It’s a band-aid for an aging pipeline. The risk of an oil spill will still exist in the Bad River watershed. And instead of moving it out of the watershed, [Enbridge moves] it upstream of the reservation. So now the entire reservation would be subject to an oil spill.”

Former Bad River Tribal Chairman Mike Wiggins Jr. at the Tribe's reservation in Wisconsin where Enbridge's Line 5 pipeline crosses.
February 28, 2024 Press Release

30 Tribal Nations Ask Biden Administration to Condemn Canadian Pipeline Trespass

Enbridge has earned over $1 billion by trespassing on the Bad River Band’s reservation.

February 27, 2024 Document

Tribal Nations’ Letter to Biden Admin re Line 5 and Tribal Sovereignty

A letter from more than 30 Tribal Nations in the Great Lakes region sent to President Joe Biden urging the United States to speak out against the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline’s trespass on the Bad River Band’s land.

Features