Ever wondered how you can do more for public lands but you aren’t sure where to start? Outdoor Alliance’s Outdoor Allies series explores how other outdoor adventurers got their start in advocacy work and their advice for how you can harness your passion for the outdoors into advocacy for the land and water you love. Renee Hutchens, Diné (Navajo), is a communications strategist, journalist, filmmaker, activist, and proud auntie dedicated to activating narrative change and advancing justice, equity, and self-determination for Indigenous peoples and the planet.

“We are the land, and the land is who we are as Diné (Navajo) people. In our culture, this experience of being inseparable from the land is acknowledged and affirmed at birth. ”

Tell us about your relationship with the outdoors.

The term “outdoors” is typically thought of or defined as the natural world, the places outside where people can enjoy nature; it’s a term that stems from western conceptualizations and values of land ethic, which often sees humans and the land as separate entities rather than interdependence with the natural world. So, I love phrasing it as a relationship with the land because my identity is interwoven with and deeply connected to land. We are the land, and the land is who we are as Diné (Navajo) people. In our culture, this experience of being inseparable from the land is acknowledged and affirmed at birth. It’s a connection that deepens and grows over a lifetime through kinship, community, knowledge, teachings, speaking our native language, ceremonies, lifeways, and cultural practices.

Unfortunately, this vital relationship with land and the natural world has been under constant attack for centuries. In order to understand Indigenous people’s views today, our pursuit for justice, and sovereignty, it’s paramount that people know that colonization historically and currently still disrupts this connection between land and Indigenous peoples. For example, the dispossession of land through genocide, violence and forced removal, and the federal government’s policies of cultural assimilation carried out through residential schools has fundamentally affected Indigenous peoples. So, today I am constantly healing, reclaiming, and re-establishing this relationship with the land. One of these ways is through mountain biking. I don’t see it as a sport or about racing. I relate to biking through the lens of my Diné identity, so riding my bike then becomes a way for me to live in a healthy relationship with the land, self, community, ancestors, and all living relatives like the plants or animals. I started riding a bike around third grade and picked up mountain biking more when I moved to Colorado in 2009 for graduate school. Connecting to the land whether through biking or other means feels like air or water for me—that relationship with the land is necessary, inseparable from my identity and well-being. When I ride, I feel the land as a living being that breathes and gives life. There’s also the sense of belonging. She knows who I am and reminds me of who I am all the time, and that’s healing and empowering. Other activities on the land that bring connection and joy are gardening, harvesting, hunting, photography, ceremonies, running, hiking, and fly fishing. So, in conclusion, it’s fair to say that my relationship with the land doesn’t include the concept of ownership, commodification, or exploitation; rather it is centered on respect, reciprocity, and balance. I love and protect the land because it’s who I am.

*The land includes all aspects of the natural world: plants, trees, animals, birds, spirits, natural features like the mountains, physical places, and environment such as the air, water, earth, or minerals.

Can you tell us a little more about how you came to the work you’re doing? What are some of the most important projects you are working on now?

I grew up with our Diné teachings and values that weren’t read in books or posted on a wall – I saw them practiced, taught through our oral tradition of storytelling, and interwoven with our ways of life. What impacted me the most was its purpose to maintain relationships (kinship) and preserve our culture, language, spirituality, knowledge, and identity that are all anchored in the land. Colonization and the forced removal of Indigenous peoples from our land interrupted our intergenerational transmission of traditional ecological knowledge, like how to manage lands, our connection to traditional food ways, our ability to live in balance and reciprocity with the planet, and our relationship with our healer, Mother Earth. So, I feel a responsibility to our ancestors, our people today, and our future generations to play an active role in healing historical trauma, and addressing colonial violence, environmental and social injustices, and the inequities impacting our communities. This was the impetus for earning a Bachelor of Arts in Native American Studies and a Master’s in Public Health with a focus in policy and communications.

Exercising self-governance and our inherent right to self-determination not only intersects nearly every issue across Indian Country, but it’s also foundational for advancing justice and equity. This is at the heart of my work. Building the collective power of Indigenous peoples, nations, and communities is essential to the broader work of building a world on a foundation of justice and equity for all people and for the planet. This calls on all of us to think creatively and innovatively, to address root causes while also supporting solutions that are designed and driven by Indigenous peoples and our communities.

The erasure of Indigenous peoples is one of the biggest challenges to the pursuit of self-determination and exercising tribal sovereignty. This is due in large part to how it contributes to the ongoing legacy of colonization, negative stereotypes, racism, violence, oppression, and harmful misconceptions and misunderstanding of Indigenous peoples and Native nations. Unfortunately, the narratives that perpetuate our invisibility have become deeply embedded in judicial systems, educational institutions, societal norms, American conservationism, media, pop culture, and the outdoor industry just to name a few. So, in recent years my work has taken on the role of narrative change, which is about intentional efforts to replace an existing narrative with something new, leading to shifts in attitudes, behaviors, practices, systems, and policies.

Although there are numerous, diverse paths to narrative change, they all have something in common, empowering Indigenous voices to tell our own stories. One of the projects I’m involved with is called, “Native Voices.” This is part of the “Voices Initiative,” a larger effort led by the Colorado News Collaborative (COLab) in partnership with Colorado Media Project. The goal is to identify best practices, practical supports, structural changes, and potential projects that can lead local newsrooms to center the stories, experiences, and news and information needs of Native peoples living in Colorado. A full report with the final recommendations will be released publicly in late 2022.

(ed. note you can read some of Renee’s beautiful essays on Patagonia, SRAM, and BIKEmag).

In an essay for Patagonia, you write “I believe that by envisioning the land as Indigenous territories, people can begin to better position themselves in a way that honors, respects and centers the original and current Indigenous peoples and their histories.” Could you talk more about your vision for the future? What do you think it should look like?

To talk about my vision for the future, it’s necessary to mention land dispossession. A recent study quantified the amount of land Indigenous people lost at 99%. In fact, the vast majority of federal public lands are carved out of the lands of Indigenous peoples. Yet, despite this catastrophic land loss, our distinct cultural connections to our ancestral homelands and sacred places have never been extinguished. Our relationship to land is not defined by borders or colonial constructs such as land designations of National Parks, monuments, Bureau of Land Management, or Forest Service. For example, Native peoples are still in relationship with their ancestral lands underneath concrete and skyscrapers, or hundreds of miles away from where Natives peoples reside today because of forced relocation.

There is a particular thing that is driving tribal sovereignty and tribal cohesion and that’s tribal culture, tradition, religion and lifeways; and this is really at the core of who we are and what has allowed us to continue to survive the onslaught of colonization. This gives me hope because we are still here, and we are resilient. We are practicing and applying the ancestral knowledge passed down to us from generations. So, my vision for the future looks like the federal government honoring and upholding treaties with tribal nations, restoring the responsibility of land stewardship to its original caretakers, and supporting Native peoples’ right to freely determine our political condition and the right to freely pursue our form of economic, social, and cultural development. This is the definition of self-determination; and we need this autonomy to pursue the building of a better world informed by our culture, practices, and generations of wisdom.

Lightning Round

Favorite book? Braiding Sweetgrass

Do you have a favorite piece of gear? The gear that comes with me on my trips are things my family has made: an eagle feather I keep with me, a medicine bundle that’s very special that protect me and support my journey.

What Indigenous news should we be reading? Navajo Times, Lakota Times, Indian Country Today, Association of American Indian Affairs, NCAI (National Congress of American Indians), Native News Online, Lakota Law Project, Native American Rights Fund, Native Max Magazine

Outdoor Allies: Renee Hutchens