2025 Agricultural Summit Report

Land Acknowledgement

Let us devote time to recognize and honor all peoples and Sovereign Nations who have ancestral ties to these lands and waters and who have contributed their labor, experience, and knowledge to nourishing communities since time immemorial. Through the Summit we are continuing to educate ourselves and our community about the historic and current ties of Indigenous communities to stewardship of the San Juan Islands and the surrounding waters, as well as our shared history and how to reconcile it. Throughout the Summit, and in our work and efforts throughout the year, we commit to:

• Fostering relationships and respect.
• Respecting Coast Salish identity, culture, connection to these land and waters, and Usual & Accustomed treaty rights.
• Recognition of trauma and what removal from land truly means.
• Deepening our understanding of our actions and their impacts, including the real impact of agriculture on Indigenous people in the area, and that land management decisions affect health outcomes of Indigenous people on an individual basis.
• Upholding our responsibility to steward the land in a reciprocal and responsible way.
• Uplifting and supporting Indigenous stewardship practices, knowledge systems, adaptive management strategies and decision making authority
• Building connections across cultures and finding ways to facilitate dialogue and action, to fulfill our responsibility to all the life that supports us.

With humility, we offer this acknowledgment as a stepping stone to deeper understanding, as our community builds connections across cultures and uncovers what it means to inhabit these lands and waters together.