The Land Back Movement, Explained

An article by B. Toastie for High Country News explains the Land Back movement, which has been gaining prominence as the internet spreads the words. The Land Back movement, as the name clearly implies, goes beyond land acknowledgement, which has also gained mainstream traction in recent years.

There’s a simple explanation for the demands of the movement. To explain, the article poses the question: “What is the LandBack movement really asking for?” The answer is simple: “The land. Back.”

The movement won a major Land Back victory of the return of Blue Lake back to the Taos Pueblo in 1970, but a social media hashtag has raised awareness of the movement more into the mainstream. “In mid-2019, the hashtag gained traction in North America during the Tiny House Warriors’ blockade of the Trans Mountain Pipeline in unceded Secwepemc territory,” writes Toastie. “Soon after, the Yellowhead Institute, an Indigenous-led policy research center at Toronto Metropolitan University, released a report called Land Back that examined settler-colonialism at work in present-day Canada. In August 2020, the advocacy group NDN Collective launched landback.org with a brief LandBack Manifesto, followed by a campaign launch on Indigenous Peoples Day.”

According to the article, the appointment of Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) as secretary of the Interior, and of Chuck Sams (Umatilla) as director of the National Park Service, the first Native people to hold either office is also furthering the cause.

The source article includes a lot more discussion and explanation.