The term "regenerative" has recently been popularized and even /co-opted by the mainstream agriculture movement, but Indigenous food production systems have long been regenerative in nature. At this panel, attendees will hear from Indigenous leaders sharing their perspectives on regenerative food systems, spanning food sovereignty, food production, health, and relationships with land.
Thosh Collins, Co-Founder, Indigenous health initiative WELL FOR CULTURE
Thosh Collins was born and raised in the Salt River Reservation in Arizona where he is now a family man, community organizer and an active participant in the community. He is a board member and senior trainer for the Native Wellness Institute and currently sits on the Land Management Board in Salt River. Thosh, along with his wife Chelsey Luger, co-founded WELL FOR CULTURE, an Indigenous wellness initiative which promotes whole life-ways through ancestral teachings to optimize contemporary Indigenous lifestyles.Thosh has dedicated his life to helping shift the collective consciousness of indigenous communities and people in regards to prioritizing whole health for the benefit of future generations.
Nikki Crowe,Tribal Conservation Collaboration Coordinator for the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
Nikki Crowe is an enrolled member of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. She currently works as a Tribal Conservation Coordinator for the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. With climate change impacting the composition of the environment Crowe calls home, she is educating herself and her community on local food sovereignty and treaty rights to hunt, fish, and gather traditional foods. Nikki holds a Masters in Social Work.
Courtney Streett, Co-Founder and President/Executive Director, Native Roots Farm Foundation (NRFF)
NRFF shares traditional Indigenous ecological knowledge online, in person, and *soon* in a public Hakihakan (Lenape for garden/farm). Courtney taps into her horticultural expertise, skills as a visual storyteller, and detail oriented production background to lead and facilitate NRFF's operations and programming. Prior to NRFF, Courtney spent a decade as a television producer at CBS News and Business Insider. Courtney received an M.S. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and wrote her graduate thesis on the local food movement. As an undergraduate, she earned a B.A. in Environmental Studies and a B.A. in Africana Studies from Wellesley College. At Wellesley, she focused her courses in environmental justice and conducted research in the college's botanic gardens comparing organic and conventional growing methods. Courtney is a member of the Nanticoke Indian Tribe. If she is not working at her computer, you can find her in the garden.
Nailah Garard, Yale Divinity School, Yale School of the Environment
Nailah is a candidate for a Master of Arts in religion at Yale Divinity School (YDS) and a Master of Environmental Management at Yale School of Environment (YSE). Within this joint degree program of religion and ecology, she is researching black-American faith traditions and their indigenous practices of eco-spirituality, and food sovereignty, as seen in black agrarianism and the church. She holds a leadership role at the Divinity Farm, where she stewards the communal plots, practices herbalism, and leads embodiment and meditative gardening workshops. She hopes to center the cultural foodways of the YDS community and deepen relationships with community gardens in local New Haven. Nailah has worked as an oral histories research intern to collect the food histories of Bronx community gardeners as part of the 2022 New York Botanical Garden's Bronx Foodways Oral History Project. The intimate narratives of these growers and community organizers underscore elements of heritage, foodways, and sovereignty central to her research. She is also a multimedia artist and scholar-activist who is deeply invested in an interdisciplinary approach to political education and creative expression.
