Neil Patterson Jr. and Catherine Landis – April 2026

7:00 pm, Tuesday, April 14, 2026 (bar opens at 6:30)
The Liederkranz Club, 6 East 87th Street, New York City
Free and open to the public. (Registration not required.)

You can also attend online via Zoom.
Click here to register for the Zoom webinar.

A Time to Heal: Indigenous Biocultural Restoration

Indigenous people throughout the world are reclaiming relationships with homelands temporarily lost to colonial states. Federal and state agencies, universities and conservation NGOs, are joining a movement to return Indigenous access to ancestral homelands and to partner with Indigenous Peoples to restore traditional land stewardship practices (The White House, 2021, Whyte et al, 2017). Such cross-cultural restoration partnerships are swiftly gaining momentum in the Northeast. Approaches to restoring cultural and ecological practices to place include land rematriation and place-name revitalization, as well as the empowerment of Indigenous communities to participate in environmental decision-making. This renewal comes with positive impacts on health of both people and land. In this talk we will provide examples of such biocultural efforts in Haudenosaunee territory. Returning Indigenous people’s access and caretaking role to land also upholds international human rights agreements such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which states: “Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinctive spiritual relationship with their traditionally occupied or otherwise used lands, territories, waters and coastal seas, and to uphold their responsibility to future generations in this regard” (UNDRIP Article 25.1, 2007).

About the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment: Our region is the home of two great intellectual traditions regarding stewardship of the earth: traditional ecological knowledge of Indigenous People and scientific ecological knowledge. The mission of the SUNY ESF Center for Native Peoples and the Environment is to create programs that draw on the wisdom of both Indigenous and scientific knowledge in support of our shared goals of environmental sustainability. In addition to serving as a bridge between traditional ecological knowledge and western scientific approaches, the Center incorporates Indigenous perspectives and knowledge for the benefit of native students and works to educate mainstream students in a cross-cultural context. The Center includes a significant outreach element focused on increasing educational opportunities for Native American students in environmental sciences, research collaborations, and partnerships with Native American communities to address local environmental problems.

Neil Patterson Jr. was born into the White Bear Clan as a citizen of the Tuscarora Nation. He is Executive Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, NY. Neil founded the Tuscarora Nation’s Environment Program as a delegate to the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force in 1997, and currently serves on the USEPA Tribal Science Council and the New York State Permanent Environmental Justice Advisory Group. He hunts, fishes, and raises traditional foods with his family on the currently recognized territory of the Onondaga Nation.

Catherine Landis works as the Science Advisor for the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at SUNY ESF. A plant ecologist by training, she works with Indigenous Nations on biological surveys to inform land care, highlight provisioning landscapes, and support land justice. She also helps lead plant restoration and research efforts. Catherine’s doctoral research focused on historical ecology of Onondaga territory, including Onondaga Lake and surrounding areas. A major Superfund site, Onondaga Lake is also sacred to the Haudenosaunee as the place where the Peacemaker came to unite the warring nations and facilitate enduring peace through the Great Law. Catherine also earned a Master’s Degree also at ESF, where she studied riparian plant establishment along an urban stream. She currently assists with the Center’s efforts to enhance NYS DEC’s capacity to engage Indigenous communities and incorporate biocultural resources and restoration into land planning.