Land Acknowledgment
The lands and waters that Wilderness Workshop seeks to protect are the ancestral homelands of the Nuche (Ute) people. Since time immemorial, Nuche people have been the longest-serving stewards of the landscapes that now make up Western Colorado. In the early 1880s, the US government broke its treaties and agreements with the Nuche, forcibly and violently removing them from their homelands and onto reservations. Euro-Americans colonized the homelands of the Nuche and began to exploit the landscape for short-term gain, leaving scars and a colonial legacy that remains today.
WW recognizes this long and violent history of removal and erasure of Nuche history and culture, which continues to this day. It is important that our modern-day advocacy for conservation and public lands does not perpetuate this cycle and as an organization we have not acknowledged this history with the urgency or attention it deserves. We are taking steps to right this wrong moving forward.
Additional resources:
- Southern Ute Indian Tribe and Southern Ute Cultural Center and Museum (pictured above)
- Ute Moutain Ute Tribe
- Ute Indian Tribe
- Ute Indian Museum
- Native Land App (to understand what land you’re on)
- We Need to Reframe Why We Do Land Acknowledgments
