A Call for Solidarity at the Sovereign Nations of Virginia 5th Annual Conference

Last week, we launched an Indigenous call for solidarity at the Sovereign Nations of Virginia Conference to seek Indigenous allies reinforce the Indigenous Conservation Council's request for Signatory status in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement. This Indigenous-only sign-on letter campaign asks Indigenous-led organizations, community groups, businesses, and Tribes to provide their support for the January 16, 2025 Declaration signed by all of the Chiefs of the federally recognized tribes in Virginia to insist that the Chesapeake Bay Program Partnership finally honor Indigenous Knowledge and tribal sovereignty in one of the world’s largest restoration initiatives.

SIGN ON HERE!

With the revision of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement (Agreement), sovereign governments including federal and state governments, have committed to collaborating to protect the Chesapeake Bay watershed. This landscape is the homeland and ancestral territory of Tribal Nations who served as the original and current stewards of this place. We specifically request that the Partnership honor tribal sovereignty and Indigenous Knowledge with a new charge signed by its Executive Council to formally engage Tribal Nations in the Agreement when it meets on December 2, 2025. The Chesapeake Bay Program's Principal Staff Committee identified this new directive as the next needed step on its June 26, 2025 response.

Image: The Māori delegation are pictured with their host, Kitcki Carroll (Cheyenne and Arapaho), Executive Director of United South and Eastern Tribes at this year's Sovereign Nations of Virginia Conference to share lessons learned in supporting unity and sovereignty. Their flag was displayed alongside of the federally recognized tribes on the stage. The conference ended with a celebration of the new Chesapeake Bay Hope Spot shared by Chief Anne Richardson of the Rappahannock Tribe, Explorer's Club members and Hope Spot Champions Dr. Kayle Krieg (White Earth Band) and Dr. Stephen Tomasetti of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore's Paul S. Sarbanes Coastal Ecology Center.

Please show your solidarity by signing on to our Indigenous Support Letter! Please direct any questions on the letter to desiree@indigenous-chesapeake.org.

SIGN ON HERE

Read the full Indigenous -led organizational sign-on letter here.

ABRREVIATED LETTER BELOW:

October 27, 2025

Governor Wes Moore

Chair, Chesapeake Executive Council

State of Maryland100 State Circle 

Annapolis, Maryland 21401-1925

Dear Governor Moore: We provide this letter of solidarity representing Tribal Nations, Indigenous-led organizations, and Indigenous collaboratives to insist that the Chesapeake Bay Program Partnership finally honor Indigenous Knowledge and tribal sovereignty in one of the world’s largest restoration initiatives. With the revision of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement (Agreement), sovereign governments including federal and state governments, have committed to collaborating to protect the Chesapeake Bay watershed. This landscape is the homeland and ancestral territory of Tribal Nations who served as the original and current stewards of this place. We specifically request that the Partnership honor tribal sovereignty and Indigenous Knowledge with a new charge signed by its Executive Council to formally engage Tribal Nations in the Agreement when it meets on December 2, 2025. The Principal Staff Committee identified this new directive as the next needed step on its June 26, 2025 response.^,

For thousands of years, Tribal Nations have been nurturing healthy wetlands, forests, savannahs, and rivers including those in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.  This relationship, despite many attempts to erase and forcibly remove Indigenous Peoples from our homelands, has never been broken. Across the Nation, from the Puget Sound, to the Great Lakes, to the Long Island Sound and the Gulf of Mexico, our Tribal Nations are formally engaging in coastal watershed partnerships to heal our lands, revitalize our culture, and share critical Indigenous Knowledge needed to manage the mounting impacts of a changing climate, extreme weather, wild fires, invasive species and pollution. Tribal Nations are still living and caring for the Chesapeake Bay watershed with historic treaty rights dating back to the 1600s codifying unique relationships and  agreements crafted through diplomatic ties developed long before the formation of the US government. Tribal sovereignty is inherent, and treaties forged acknowledged and reserved the existing inherent rights that Tribal Nations have always held as sovereign nations.  In 2015 and 2018, seven Tribal Nations–the Chickahominy Indian Tribe, the Chickahominy Indian Tribe-Eastern Division, the Monacan Indian Nation, the Nansemond Indian Nation, the Pamunkey Indian Tribe, the Rappahannock Tribe and the Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe–were federally acknowledged with a unique government-to-government relationship recognized under US law.^, Treaty rights have been affirmed and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court rulings with consistent support for the importance of tribal sovereignty and the trust relationship between federally recognized tribes and the federal government. Further, these types of partnerships have proven successful in other regions where Tribal Nations, Indigenous organizations, and sovereign governments have collaborated successfully to care for coastal watersheds via formal partnerships that uphold treaty rights and government-to-government consultation.

As Indigenous stewards of our ancestral lands, we have seen the power of restoring Indigenous connections, upholding tribal sovereignty, and honoring Indigenous Knowledge first hand. Indigenous-led partnerships hold the potential to improve biodiversity outcomes, water quality, and ecosystem resilience and even outperform conventional management alone.^, The Great Lakes Tribal Restoration Initiative since 2010 has established co-management agreements that have resulted in the successful restoration of 150,000 acres of habitat, invasive species monitoring and removal, and cultural programming across 800 projects. Similarly, Indigenous Guardians programs in Canada have created a 270% return on investment demonstrating they are good for the land and good for people. 

We affirm the declaration signed by all the Chiefs of the federally recognized tribes in the Chesapeake Bay region on January 15, 2025 entitled, A Declaration of Tribal Nations as Sovereign Governments Committed to the Protection and Restoration of Ancestral Lands and Waters through the Chesapeake Bay Program Partnership, to announce their intent to formally join the Partnership. We call on your leadership to insist that the updated Agreement enshrine this declaration to include Tribal Nations as signatory partners via the intertribal consortia they created–the Indigenous Conservation Council, establish a new Indigenous Guardians program, and respect Indigenous Knowledge on par with western science. 

Formal engagement of Tribal Nations in the Chesapeake Bay Program creates a watershed moment for this Partnership since forming in 1983. Tribal stewardship and Indigenous Knowledge is necessary to protect this national treasure and we join our voices in solidarity to address this oversight and spur collaboration that can better protect the Chesapeake Bay watershed and all ancestral lands.