Samantha Skenandore – Re-Evolving Indigeneity to Save our Planet

If we are to have a chance of reversing the destructive path our world is currently on and ushering in a genuinely nature-honoring era in which decisions will be made based on their effects seven generations in the future, we need to empower the extraordinary crop of young leaders, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, now emerging on the scene. Samantha Skenandore, of Ho-Chunk and Oneida ancestry, one of the nation’s leading practitioners of and experts in Federal Indian law and tribal law, delves into the living legacies of her people’s guardianship of water, springs, trails, portals, and burial and sacred sites to illustrate the types of values we need to ground ourselves in, and describes some of her legal battles to highlight some of the types of struggles we must wage. But, above all, she exhorts us to do everything we can to support a new generation of change-makers that is combining the deep wisdom of ancestral TEK (Traditional Ecological Knowledge) with the best of contemporary science and technology to address our complex modern problems. This talk was delivered at the 2026 Bioneers Conference. Introduction by Britt Gondolfi, Indigeneity Special Programs Coordinator. 0:00 Introduction by Britt Gondolfi 3:00 Samantha's Keynote begins 30:40 Outro