Liv Watyana'li:yo Bigtree, Turtle Clan is Onyota'a:ka (Oneida) and lives in Ioskóhare. She grew up in the Onondagaw Reserve where she was raised by predominantly strong Onkwéhon:we (Original Beings) women. Having a background in visual art, she finished her first year of art school at Maryland Institute College of Art in 2021. Over the course of her high school career, she received numerous honors and titles, both nationally and regionally for her artistic talents. Her willingness to be open to guidance and her authenticity has taken her path away from colonial life. Decolonization, healing, and spirituality are all included in her personal work and what she intends to bring to Ioskóhare. Today, her role in Ioskóhare has been to practice, plant seeds, and rematriate the land.

Liv is also the Communications Director (and on the Board of Directors) of The Waterfall Unity Alliance - a 501c3 nonprofit, Onkwehónwe (Original People) Women led organization, protecting Ioskóhare (Schoharie Valley) and all Earth, building alliances across movements & cultures, and helping create solutions to the existential challenges of our time.

Dana Ngo is the Lead Organizer at TerraBiome, exploring the interconnectedness of living systems and their shared role in the applied sciences, traditional wisdom, and ecological governance.

Dana is also a weaver of conversations and collective movements, tying together traditional wisdom and applied technologies– spirituality and science.

With formal education, training, and extensive experience in genetics & genomics, education, and ecology, she has taken her work and communications roles into the field of ecological governance and planetary health advocacy. Her current areas of exploration with her communities include systems of evolution of the self and the world through advising businesses and non-profit organizations.

“In a world where the planet is continuously evolving and the number of resources are shifting with it, how do you ensure the vitality of every single being and make sure that they are getting the best quality of life? And how do you do so while being mindful of the changing environment, different cultural practices, fluid energetics, dynamism, and being in reciprocity? These are the questions that I explore in my work and research.”

Dr. Lester Shaw is a seasoned educator, program designer, and community advocate. As the founder and Executive Director of A Pocket Full Of Hope, he has created programs that combine youth development with learning strategies, helping children and families overcome challenges like gangs, drugs, and violence.

With over 22 years of teaching experience and certifications in drama therapy, case management, and chemical dependency, Dr. Shaw has extensive expertise in crisis intervention, vocational assessment, and career development for at-risk populations. His work includes roles with Family & Children’s Services and Metropolitan Tulsa Substance Abuse and Counseling Services.

Dr. Shaw also serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Oklahoma, advocating for learner-centered education and supporting youth in transition. His dedication to community service has earned him multiple awards, including the Oklahoma Arts Council Governors Arts Awards for Community Service and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Award.

As a certified trainer for the National Center for Fathering, he conducts training sessions to promote personal responsibility among fathers. Dr. Shaw’s expertise and commitment make him an invaluable advisor in designing our grant-making processes to support activists and charitable causes.

Jacklyn Janeksela is a storyteller, maker, and Mother Earth protector. She is a Saami direct descendant; her ancestors have asked her to rekindle and cultivate their lost wonder for the natural world and our place in it.

“May we all wake from the slumber of capitalism and not enoughness. Plants, people, and planets aligned, I believe we can make positive changes, add goodness, heal. As an Indigenous woman, my purpose on Earth Mother is centered on social and environmental justice. We cannot heal ourselves without simultaneously healing Mother Earth.”

Darren J. Glenn is a Trinidadian-American intersectional environmentalist, human rights advocate, and librarian based in Brooklyn, NY. Born in San Juan, Trinidad and Tobago, Darren immigrated to the United States in 1993 growing up in Queens and then Long Island, NY. After receiving his Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science, Darren co-founded the Glenn Family Foundation to address critical social, economic, and environmental issues throughout the Caribbean. He also works for Brooklyn Public Library as an Outreach Librarian serving the information and technology access needs of underserved communities, particularly in East Brooklyn. In addition to his roles at the Glenn Family Foundation and Brooklyn Public Library, Darren consults for a number of social justice and environmental action non profits locally, nationally, and internationally, supporting movements for economic and racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights, immigrant rights, and environmental education and stewardship through grant writing, program development and advocacy. As an intersection environmental organizer, Darren’s work—through all of the organizations that he volunteers for—centers on activating projects that holistically care for people from marginalized communities and the natural world

Raycen American Horse Raines, an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, is a Navy veteran and businessman dedicated to improving economic conditions and food security on the Pine Ridge Reservation. His commitment to public service and community development is evident through his numerous charitable initiatives.

Raycen has been instrumental in introducing private sector opportunities to the reservation, focusing on sustainable practices and renewable energy. He founded American Horse Consulting and the American Horse Tribal Development company to support tribal economic growth. His work includes innovative projects like underground greenhouses that use geothermal energy for year-round food production, addressing food security and agricultural challenges in his community.

A lifelong advocate for sobriety and traditional values, Raycen leads the Positive Choice Tour, inspiring Native Youth with messages of heritage and the warrior spirit. His consulting company, RainDancer Resource Management, collaborates with federal agencies and various sectors to bring sustainable economic development and employment opportunities to Indian Country. Raycen's efforts have significantly enhanced food security and economic stability for the Oglala Sioux Tribe.

Founder of Mycelial Law, Founder of the Northeast Healthy Soil Network

Josie’s North Star is the manifestation of systems that more easefully nourish human communities, whilst connecting them intimately with their plant kin and ecological spirit of their place. She was raised in a household deeply influenced by both Buckminster Fuller. 

She is a regenerative agriculture transition think-tank coordinator, and convert from global governance (UN level) to Northeast bioregional level climate resilience strategist. Her JD/Masters focuses spanned dynamic federalism, adaptive management and nested commons governance by State and local government layers in the United States, and the integration of Tribal Partnerships into climate resilience development strategies. In support of all those building a new system that will render our existing one obsolete, Josie founded the movement law firm Mycelial Law LLC to serve all dimensions of resourcing bioregional-scale governance pathways, integrating earth law and regenerative economic principles into legal forms.

Marion Weber is a healing arts activist having healed herself through her art. She worked with cancer patients and doctors at Commonweal fostering inspired healing visioning through Sandtray Practice. She invented The Group Sandtray and was the first healing artist to create a drop-in Sandtray Room for her community.

Marion was part of the Back To Land Movement in the 60s and lived in a caboose off the grid for five years while farming in Bolinas and raising her two daughters.

In the 90s, she dreamed up a new form of philanthropy called Flow Funding.

Hanmin Liu is a second-generation American, born in Chinatown, San Francisco. He is the co-founder of Wildflowers Institute, which he started with his spouse, Jennifer Mei, in 1997. The Institute has run multiyear focus group sites in indigenous, ethnic, and racial communities in the United States, China, and Mexico. Wildflowers identifies the ways in which communities are working to solve their problems and how best to support those efforts. Key to this approach is the continual assessment of who in these communities are the trusted leaders apart from appointed or elected officials and nongovernmental organizations.

During his tenure as chair and trustee of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Hanmin oversaw $4 billion of funding in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States. He also worked to balance the priorities of the staff with the founder’s and the board’s vision of a unique people-based approach to philanthropy.

Additionally, Hanmin was one of the lead evaluators for the W. K. Kellogg Foundation’s largest grant to date for the establishment of the International Youth Foundation.

Hanmin has worked with Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, and Nelson Mandela, and he was the first to organize binational medical and health exchange programs, as well as the first national conference on preventive community dentistry.

Principle, The Connection Partners, Inc.

Sharon Joy is a meta-networker, recognized internationally as a leader in organizing and facilitating small and large group processes. With a lifetime of experience, she recognizes the benefits of strategic conversational models and which best fit the opportunity. They include World Café, Appreciative Inquiry, Open Space, the Art of Hosting. Circle, and Asset Based Community Development. She facilitates timely conversations, co-creating environments to practice being fully present and authentic.

Sharon Joy is one of the founding members of KINS Tampa Bay, continues to nurture those relationships by convening networking groups of kindred spirits who are studying the effects of love on the bioregion.

Steward and Educator at Little White Salmon Biodiversity Reserve

Hank Patton is an organic farmer and beekeeper with a life-long interest in outdoor education. He founded the Bridgehouse Voluntary School (private) and Sacajawea Living Lab (public) in Portland, Oregon, and co-founded the Little White Salmon Biodiversity Reserve with Gifford Pinchot III and friends in 1994, a learning watershed of ancient forest and agricultural lands dedicated to hands-on curiosity-driven stewardship learning and what he likes to call “the testable hypothesis of sustaining culture.” Hank developed an innovation thesis known as Intergenerational Finance (IGF), a bond-funded and science-based transactional framework for the rapid profitable retirement and replacement of infrastructure that harms the future.