Nia Tero Annual Report 2023 ENGLISH Single pages - Flipbook - Page 12
ABOUT US
Guiding
Principles
Implicit in our vision and mission is recognizing and prioritizing Indigenous Peoples’ rights,
sovereignty, self-determination, and cultural vitality within and beyond their homelands and
waters. Thus, we adhere to the following principles to guide all our work.
Center Indigenous Ways and Means
in Nia Tero’s working practices
Respect the diversity of Indigenous
Peoples’ ways of being and doing
Our structures and working practices
explicitly reflect an intention to listen to both
descendants and ancestors and work
patiently to build relationships and trust.
As part of this, we aspire to live the humility
and listening spirit necessary to work in service
to the wisdom, dreams, and self-determination
of diverse Indigenous Peoples across Earth.
We refer to this intention as Indigenous
Ways & Means.
Indigenous Peoples have diverse cultures,
languages, ways of being, protocols, and live
in geographically and ecologically diverse
territories. Nia Tero acknowledges this spiritual
and cultural diversity as essential to our shared
humanity and in shaping our understanding
of why the lands and waters that Indigenous
Peoples inhabit remain among the healthiest
and best cared for on Earth.
Follow and respect the rights
and self-determination of
Indigenous Peoples
Our work is guided by the priorities, systems
of governance and decision-making, and ways
and means of Indigenous Peoples achieving
guardianship of territories. The United Nations
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples is our starting point for all our work
and partnerships.
Value the full spectrum
of the diversity of life
In all our partnerships and choices, we center
actions that sustain the abundance and
diversity of life at local and global scales,
including ecosystems, land and seascapes,
humans, and all species. Doing so honors and
sustains diverse human identities that overlay
and are nourished by these other patterns
of diversity.
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Nia Tero Annual Report 2023
Focus on Indigenous Peoples’
guardianship of collective territories
All our work serves Indigenous Peoples whose
territories are defined by the self-determined
geographic lines of Indigenous nationhood.
These lines often predate and transcend
modern nation-states and create a map of the
world delineated by human identity, language,
culture, and ecology.
Commit to long term partnerships
with Indigenous Peoples
We seek to enter into trust-based partnerships
with humility, centering relationships around
the self-determined visions of our partners.
Commitment to this is enduring – spanning
multiple human generations and animating
all our interactions. We place the survival
of our partners above all else, and we
are committed to co-designing of our
engagements with our partners.
