Environmental Justice: Our understanding of environmental justice is focused on distributive justice, procedural justice, and recognitional justice. We recognize that the communities most affected by environmental injustice typically facea lack of resources or haveresources/landsthat arethreatenedbygovernments and/or nature. These communities are often excluded fromdecision-making processes or have their authority disregarded or overwritten. Finally, communities which are facing environmental challenges are often deniedthe respect incumbent with their knowledge of, investment in, and expertise regarding their homelands. Understanding these challenges, we know that true environmental justice can only be achieved by respecting communities,valuing their place-based knowledge,sharing decision making and long-term planning regarding the environment, and seeking to rectify the resource imbalances which damage these populations.

We are committed to justice:

•Environmental justice: We recognize that environmental justice extends beyond protecting the environment. Indigenous communities have historically been denied the resources of their lands and had their legally protected lands and resources stolen from them. We know that,in considering questions of environmental justice, we must strive for distributive justicewhich deliberately allocates resources to indigenous peoples and seeks to reverse the harm done. We are committed to procedural justicewhich advocates transparencyin decision making, and fairness in the outcomes of any environmental actions. Finally, we advocate for recognitional justicewherein we readily and firmly acknowledge the sovereignty of the peoples we work with, as well as the historical political, economic, social, and physical harm done to indigenous populations. We believe that only through understanding these histories and subscribing to holistic thinking and open communication and true environmental justicebe achieved.

•Land Sovereignty: We affirm our commitment to the sovereignty of the communities we work with, acknowledging the authority and legal rights of tribal governments, and both the legal and historical roles of tribes as caretakers of their lands. We both respect tribes’s roles as sovereign governments and their rights to self-govern their legally afforded lands.We are committed to respect

•We know that customs and cultures are a cherished and deeply held part of any community. We are committed to learning about the traditions of our research partners and seek to not only respect but honor these practices. We know the value of place-based knowledge and come to our work ready to learn and listen to the wisdom of those with whom we work.

•We understand that our research is collaborative by its nature, and we are dedicated to first learning about our community partners. Community priorities for research aims and processes are our priorities. We are dedicated to keeping our research process transparent so we can reach joint expectations and ensurethat the results are beneficial for all parties. We walk into research partnerships with humility and respect knowing that our work can only be accomplished through honest conversation, listening, and collaboration.We are committed to the communities we serve

•We know our research process, in order to address the needs of our partner communities, must be co-developed from start to finish. We seek tangible results that have equal input from all of our collaborators (both our initial research team and community partners). We constantly reevaluate our work and are open to critique so we can continue to improve our research methods and process. Finally, we understand that our work doesn’t end at the conclusion of a particular research project but should instead be designed to provide long-term benefits beyond an individual collaboration.

•We recognize that the university resources we have access to must be open and accessible to communities who have been traditionally excluded from such institutions. We believethat our community partnerships must provideaccess to institutes of higher learning to the community and seek togenerate other forms ofeducationaland vocational advancement opportunities forourcommunity partners. Finally, we promise to write and publish in ways which are legible to a broad audience. We will share our findings with our community partnerships openly, prior to publication, and make sure that community members are a part of the creation of knowledge we publish and are credited as such.We are committed to creating open systems of collaboration

•We recognize that Western power structures (traditionally hierarchical and closed) are both exclusionary and disempowering. We are attentive to the colonial legacies of which the academy is a part and recognize higher education’s history of disregard for native rights and customs. We are committed to understanding how our partner’s power structures work and respecting these institutions. We aim to work with our partners to create egalitarian and representative systems where we are united in our aims and execution of goals. In forging genuine partnerships, we strive to be attentive to our own group dynamics and seek to create models which are supportive, open, and egalitarian in nature. We know that while we seek positive conclusions through our research, the process by which we reach those conclusions is as important as the results: to this end we believe in collaboration through the creation of genuine partnerships that foster community creation at every step of our process.

•We believe that institution change requires transdisciplinary work. In this we are committed to full community partnerships with wide opportunities to bring inmembers of both the indigenous and academic communities we serve. We believe this is critical to challenge the hegemonical disciplinary thinking which runs across universities and will help us to create new ways of generating knowledge which are fairer and more just for all members of our research. Finally, we understand that is particularly critical to bring on young voices to this process and strive to include students, young scholars, and youth community members into our work.