Panel: Local and Indigenous Land Practices

Indigenous local land stewards will share stories on traditional ecological knowledge and practices for caring for the environment. Co-sponsored by The Sogorea Te’ Land Trust and facilitated by Loa Niumeitolu and Kim Shuck, the panel’s presenters include Melissa Nelson, Gregg Castro, Corrina Gould and Lisa Tiny Gray-Garcia.
Loa Niumeitolu is a Tongan poet, community organizer and farmer. Her work appears in Whetu Moana: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English, Homelands: Women’s Journeys across Race, Place, and Time and Yellow Medicine Review: A Journal of Indigenous Literature, Art, and Thought. She has been featured on BBC Radio Scotland. As an educator and organizer, she has worked with(in) Mataliki: Tongan Writers Group in Tonga; Ex-Prisoners and Prisoners Organizing for Community Advancement in Worcester, Massashusetts; Pacific Islander women and male prisoners in Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla and California State Prison, Solano. She co-founded the Two Spirit Takataapui LGBTQ indigenous support groups: One Love Oceania, Oyate Tupu‘anga and Spirit Root Medicine People.
Kim Shuck was San Francisco’s seventh Poet Laureate. Her poetry draws on her multiethnic background which includes Polish and Cherokee heritage, and her experiences as a lifelong resident of San Francisco. Her most recent book of poetry, Pick a Garnet to Sleep In, was published in 2024, and her book of essays, Noodle, Rant, Tangent, was published in 2022. In her term as Poet Laureate, she hosted scores of free poetry and art workshops for all ages at neighborhood libraries and schools and worked closely with San Francisco Public Library and the San Francisco Arts Commission to launch major citywide initiatives to honor Native American Indigenous Peoples' heritage.
Melissa K. Nelson, Ph.D. is a professor of Indigenous Sustainability in the School of Sustainability, College of Global Futures at Arizona State University. Dr. Nelson is an Indigenous ecologist, writer, editor, media-maker and award-winning scholar-activist.
Gregg Castro has worked to preserve his Ohlone and Salinan heritage for over three decades. He is the Culture Director of the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone, advising within their San Francisco Peninsula homelands. Gregg is a writer activist within the California indigenous community.
Corrina Gould is the chair and spokesperson for the Confederated Villages of Lisjan-she was born and raised in Oakland, the village of Huichin. Corrina is the Co-Director for The Sogorea Te’ Land Trust and the Co-Founder and Lead Organizer for Indian People Organizing for Change.
Lisa Tiny Gray-Garcia is a poet, teacher, revolutionary journalist, co-founder and visionary of Homefulness and POOR Magazine, and the author of Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America.
Sogorea Te’ Land Trust is an urban Indigenous women-led land trust based in the San Francisco Bay Area that facilitates the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people.