Indigenous Knowledge and Climate Change: The Keys to Our Resilient Future

Originally from Boston, Amira Madison was raised on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. She is an enrolled citizen of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head Aquinnah and currently sits as Councilwoman on Tribal Council. She serves as the Secretary for the recently formed Aquinnah Land Initiative, Inc. and is a member of the Wampanoag Consulting Alliance (WCA).

Over the years she’s worked hard to serve Indigenous communities in many different capacities. She was the Tribal Youth Coordinator for the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head Aquinnah, a Docent at the Aquinnah Cultural Center, and served two consecutive terms as the Female Co-President of United National Indian Tribal Youth, Inc. (UNITY). Before starting this role, she served as the first Supporting Indigenous Communities Program Manager for the City of Boston in the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics and the Equity and Inclusion Cabinet. Madison graduated from Northeastern University with a BA in History and a minor in International Affairs.

Hartman Deetz has been active in environmental and cultural stewardship for over 20 years. This stewardship is based on his spiritual foundation in his Native traditions that value the Earth as a living being. He is also returning to his work with the Wampanoag Language Reclamation Program as a student and teacher. Deetz is a traditional artist as well as a singer and dancer, having shown his art in galleries, and performed for audiences from coast to coast across the US.

He is currently engaged with advocacy work for the Charles River Watershed Association advocating for the health and restoration of the Charles River and other campaigns around Native rights to access waterways.

Keely is a Nipmuc, queer, farmer, organizer, and mother with more than 15 seasons of experience farming, 10 + years mentoring and working alongside folks of all ages on the land and 5+ years saving seed in the northeast.  She has served on the boards of Rooted in Community, a national network of youth food and environmental justice organizations on turtle island, the farmer advisory board for Cultivemos, a farmer mental health initiative, NEFOC, the northeast farmers of color land trust and the Nipmuc Community Land Project.  Currently, Keely is working with a small team to build out Pequoig Farm, a food sovereignty project by and for Nipmucs located on a 180 acre piece of land rematriated to her community. 

Lauren “Sun Turtle” Peters is a seedkeeper, citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and a member of the Bear Clan. She was born and raised in Mashpee, MA (Cape Cod), where her people have lived for over 12,000 years. Today, she lives between Mashpee, during the growing season, and Brooklyn, NY. Similarly, her ancestors would move their villages closer to the ocean in the summer months. Women, children and two spirit would grow their traditional crops as a community, to support their seafood-rich diet. For the past three seasons, she has led the Corn Sister Circle, a traditional three sisters garden on their ancestral homelands, rematriating Metacom corn, a seed that was destroyed during the King Philips War, 400 years ago. In 2025, they also rematriated a Mills-Brown squash and the Mashpee Methodist Bean both from the 1800s. The Corn Sister Circle is predominantly women, children and two-spirit tribal members, as gardens were traditionally cared for by those following female gender roles in the village. They use ancestral practices that have been used on their land for thousands of years. The garden offers a space for tribal members to keep their traditional teachings alive, while maintaining a healthy relationship with Mother Earth, themselves and each other.

Outside of the growing season, Lauren works with institutions between New York and Mashpee sharing her experiences with land, food and social injustice. Some clients include MIT, Harvard, Pace University, and Tufts. She has 2 young sons and recently completed her MBA in Paris, France. She uses this degree to consult for Native and Tribal businesses. Additionally, she teaches yoga at Kripalu with her partner Kate Herrera-Jenkins of Native Strength Revolution. All profit from these efforts fund community projects like the garden and cultural revitalization work in the off-season. Building with her community, rematriating seeds and uplifting others is her passion and who she is at her core. She walks in both worlds; with a professional background in international business, living in NYC for almost 20 years, while keeping herself grounded in her traditions.

Leah Hopkins, mother, educator, culture bearer, subsistence practitioner and museum professional, is an enrolled citizen of the Narragansett Indian Tribe of Rhode Island.  Leah works to develop and implement programs, curricula and digital content for Indigenous and non-Indigenous audiences about Native history, culture, values, lifeways and practices. She also works to ensure cultural continuity of the area’s Indigenous peoples through programs, workshops and advocacy.  She is a professional speaker, consultant, traditional dancer and singer grounded in Narragansett land and sea based practices. Leah works collaboratively with Indigenous and Tribal communities, museums, and other institutions to ensure best practices in programming and education initiatives that promote visibility and ensure the perspectives of Indigenous populations in New England.

Leah holds a BA in Anthropology from the University of Rhode Island, and has a background in museum and tribal education that spans over 10 years, working at both the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), and with other regional institutions, organizations and tribal communities. She is currently the Indigenous Peoples Partnership Coordinator and oversees the First Peoples First Stewards Partnership Program at the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation.

In her personal time, Leah enjoys playing with her children and taking them out on the land and the water to teach about the traditional subsistence lifestyle and ensure that the next generation maintains cultural continuity.

Jason Baldes, an enrolled member of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe, received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Land Resources & Environmental Sciences from Montana State University, where he focused on the restoration of buffalo/bison to Tribal lands. In 2016, he spearheaded the successful effort to relocate a herd to the Wind River Indian Reservation and works with both the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes in buffalo management and expansion. He is an advocate, educator and speaker on Indigenous cultural revitalization and ecological restoration who has also served as director of the Wind River Native Advocacy Center, where he was instrumental in the passing of the Wyoming Indian Education for All Act. Today, Jason is the executive director of the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative, and adjunct professor at Central Wyoming College and Wind River Tribal College. He sits on the board of directors for the Inter-Tribal Buffalo Council, and the board of trustees for the Conservation Lands Foundation. He is also the Senior Tribal Buffalo Program Manager for the National Wildlife Federation’s Tribal Partnerships Program, and has established resolution-based agreements and helped restore more than 100 conservation Buffalo to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes in Wind River since 2016.