The Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative (WRTBI) is an Indigenous-led organization which is restoring the Buffalo as wildlife and relative through land rematriation on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, home to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes. Learn more about the importance of Buffalo restoration in this interview with Kaycee Prevedel and Dawn Stagner.

Kaycee Prevedel is the Partnership and Communications Director for the WRTBI. Kaycee is passionate about land protection and wildlife restoration. In college, she graduated with an advanced degree in American Studies with a focus on Indigenous Land Rights. Before WRTBI, she worked for the Sierra Club Wyoming Chapter as a wildlife and public lands advocate, as well as for the Bureau of Land Management, the US Forest Service, and the National Park Service at Mesa Verde National Park. Her expertise is in public/ancestral land protection and Tribal co-management. Kaycee is a Land Back advocate and is driven to amplify the efforts of Native-led organizations, especially WRTBI.

Dawn Stagner is the Community Engagement Director for the WRTBI. Dawn is a writer and award-winning journalist who specializes in Indigenous land rights. She has two degrees in American Studies – an undergraduate degree from University of Wyoming and a masters from Bowling Green State University – where she studied Indigenous history and literature. Born and raised in central Wyoming, Stagner is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma and she is an Eastern Shoshone descendant. A lifelong interest in wildlife and Indigenous rights has guided her writing on Buffalo as well as rez dogs and cattle. She wants her skills as a storyteller to provide support for the Buffalo, youth, and community at-large here at the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative.

Show notes:

Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative: https://windriverbuffalo.org/

Learn more about Wind River reservation treaties and Treaty Day: https://windriverbuffalo.org/what-is-treaty-day/

WRTBI is a Rematriation partner of the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery: through our Land Justice Fund the Coalition has helped raise funds to buy back parcels of land and expand the territory the Buffalo can roam. We also have a working group that works with WRTBI in support of their initiatives. To connect with and support the Coalition’s WRTBI working group email [email protected]

Check out our online monthly trainings: tinyurl.com/Trainings2026

Sarah and Sheri’s book: So That We and Our Children May Live: Following Jesus in Confronting the Climate Crisis

Sarah and Sheri’s Substack: So That We and Our Children May Live

You can follow the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery on Instagram (@coalitiontodismantle) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/dismantlediscovery)

Tyson Yunkaporta is an academic, arts critic, researcher, and member of the Apalech Clan in far north Queensland. He is the author of “Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World”, winner of the Small Publishers’ Adult Book of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards and the Ansari Institute’s Randa and Sherif Nasr Book Prize on Religion & the World, awarded to an author who explores global issues using Indigenous perspectives. He carves traditional tools and weapons and also works as a senior lecturer in Indigenous Knowledges at Deakin University in Melbourne. He lives in Melbourne, Australia.

Show Notes

Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World

Speaker Series on YouTube

Speaker Series on the Coalition to Dismantle website

In this episode Sarah and Sheri talk with Laurens van Esch about St. Stephens University’s (SSU) Certificate in Reconciliation Studies program. This program was designed to equip settlers to live into relations of peace and friendship, and to take seriously the work of reconciliation. Learn more about this one of a kind theological program at the links below.

Originally from the Netherlands, Dr. Laurens van Esch teaches history and political philosophy at St. Stephen's University, on the homeland of the Peskotomuhkati Nation in New Brunswick, Canada. Over the years, he has participated in various forms of Indigenous solidarity efforts through organizations such as Community Peacemaker Teams, Mennonite Church Canada, and the Canadian Friends Service Committee (Quakers). At St. Stephen's University, he currently serves as co-director of the Centre for Reconciliation Studies, which seeks to equip non-Indigenous people to commit to an ongoing process of reconciliation as invited by the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Laurens loves to reflect on how the study of the past relates to the pursuit of justice in the present, and is particularly interested in the power of story, religion, and commemorative practices within emancipatory social movements.

Show notes:

St. Stephen’s University Certificate in Reconciliation Studies

Program website: www.ssu.ca/certificate-in-reconciliation-studies

Application page: www.ssu.ca/application

Check out our online monthly trainings: tinyurl.com/Trainings2026

Sarah’s and my book: So That We and Our Children May Live: Following Jesus in Confronting the Climate Crisis

Sarah’s and my Substack: So That We and Our Children May Live

You can follow the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery on Instagram (@coalitiontodismantle) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/dismantlediscovery)

Born on Onondaga Nation territory, and the homelands of her father, Diane Schenandoah holds the responsibility of Faithkeeper for the Oneida Nation. She was born into the Wolf Clan and her mother, Maisie, was a Wolf Clan Mother for Oneida Nation. As a young woman, with the support of her artistic family, she pursued her love of the arts at the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in ABQ, NM and later the prestigious Institute of American Indian Arts/Santa Fe, where she was mentored by Chiricahua Apache sculptor Allan Houser/Haozous. In addition to being an artist and a leader within her family, Clan, community, and Nation, Diane currently serves as Honwadiyenawa’sek (One Who Helps Them) at the Barnes Center at the Arch, Syracuse University, supporting students by sharing Haudenosaunee principles and philosophies on wellness and well-being. Her art is in numerous private collections and represented in the collections of the Iroquois Museum, Castellani Art Museum, Fenimore Museum/Cooperstown, and of course the New York State Museum.

Show Notes

Speaker Series on YouTube

Speaker Series on the Coalition to Dismantle website

Hear more from Diane on the Decolonizing 250 Years of America Webinar

Dr. Wendsler Nosie Sr. is a former Peridot District Councilman and Tribal Chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe. Wendsler was born on the San Carlos Apache Reservation and was raised in the traditional Apache way of life. He graduated from the Globe High School in 1978, attended Merritt College in Oakland, California, attended Phoenix College in Phoenix, Arizona, and completed the State of Arizona Banking Academy. Dr. Nosie specializes in Bioethics, Sustainability and Global Public Health. He is dedicated to the preservation and protection of Native American culture, artifacts, history, religion, and tradition. Wendsler is the leader of the Apache Stronghold and Director of Gaan Bike Goz aa where he continues to advocate for indigenous religious and human rights and protecting the future for our next generations to come.

Show Notes

Apache Stronghold website

Apache Stronghold Facebook and Instagram

Speaker Series on YouTube

Speaker Series on the Coalition to Dismantle website

Jim Rock (Sisseton Dakota Father) has taught Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy for over forty years at reservation, urban and suburban high schools, colleges, tribal college and universities. He recently retired as the Director of Indigenous Programming for the Marshall W. Alworth Planetarium and as an instructor in the Physics and Astronomy department of Swenson College of Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota Duluth. He is an Elder in Residence at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities COIN center and is a founding governing council member of the Makoche Ikikchupi Project to return exiled Ocheti Shakowin Oyate to their sacred homelands, and to live in sustainable earth lodge communities.

Show Notes

*Makoce Ikikcupi link

Speaker Series on YouTube

Speaker Series on the Coalition to Dismantle website

**

Tela Loretta Troge, Esq. is a member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation and a member of the Hassanamisco Nipmuc Tribe. Tela is the director of the Shinnecock Kelp Farmers and the Niamuck Land Trust. She recently organized the Warriors of the Sunrise Sovereignty Camp 2020 in an attempt to raise awareness about the plight of the Shinnecock people. Tela graduated from Michigan State University College of Law with a Juris Doctor and certification in Indigenous Law and Policy from the Indigenous Law Program. She has been fighting for tribal sovereignty for the past 11 years as the attorney with the Law Offices of Tela L. Troge, PLLC.

Show Notes

Shinnecock Kelp Farmers

Mongabay video interview with Tela Troge and the Shinnecock Kelp Farmers

Watch the Speaker Series on YouTube 

Watch the Speaker Series on the Coalition to Dismantle website

Steven A. Darden (Diné/Navajo and Cheyenne) is an artist, human rights advocate, business owner, and traditional practitioner. He is a long-time commissioner to the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission, and currently serves as the vice-chair. Steve is a Luce Foundation Indigenous Knowledge Fellow. He sits on the council of elders for the American Indian Science and Engineering Society.

Sophie Pierre served her community of ‘Aqam (the St. Mary’s Indian Band) of the Ktunaxa Nation for 30 years, 26 as elected chief, and for 25 years was the administrator of the Ktunaxa/Kinbasket Tribal Council, now the Ktunaxa Nation Council. Sophie was recognized with the Order of Canada in 2016; the Order of British Columbia in 2002 and the National Aboriginal Achievement Award in the business category in 2003. Sophie’s commitment to good governance, accountability and leadership has been recognized by three honorary degrees from Simon Fraser University, University of British Columbia and University of Canada West. Sophie, a mother of three and grandmother of five, now spends much of her time as an elder advisor to her community of ‘Aqam and to the Ktunaxa Nation. As a fluent speaker of the Ktunaxa language her commitment to the responsibility of passing on traditional knowledge remains her lifetime goal.

Show Notes

In this second part of our interview with Coalition Chaplain Debbie Royals, we continue our discussion of colonized/colonizing worship and the need for spiritual care in our work. This is a work in progress, as we together seek to realign ourselves with the Creator and Creation through worship.

Debbie is Pascua Yaqui from Tucson, AZ, a sister, mother to two wonderful young men and grandmother to four. She is an Episcopal priest, author, retreat leader and educator. Debbie earned a diploma in Nursing, a B.A. in Native American Spirituality and Theology from Prescott College, an M.Div. from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific and a M.A. in Religion and Society from the Graduate Theological Union. She serves as the Canon for Native American Ministry in the Diocese of Arizona and is developing a“new church community called Four Winds serving Indigenous people. Debbie led the Indigenous Theological Training Institute for 10 years and published several journals with Indigenous theologians. She has published in books on prayer and daily meditations. Debbie has navigated the divide by forming a bridge as a Native American spiritual leader and Episcopal priest. Her passion for restorative justice and binding community is evident in every aspect of her life.

Watch video recordings of this and other episodes from Season 4 of the Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery Podcast on our YouTube Channel.

Sarah and Sheri’s book: So That We and Our Children May Live: Following Jesus in Confronting the Climate Crisis

Sarah and Sheri’s Substack: So That We and Our Children May Live

You can follow the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery on Instagram (@coalitiontodismantle) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/dismantlediscovery).