A Native Perspective on the Land Back movement
July 23, 2026 by Inés Ixierda
From left: Angela Mooney D’Arcy, Corrina Gould
On this edition of Your Call’s US at 250: A Native Perspective Series, we’ll discuss the Land Back movement, an Indigenous-led global framework dedicated to reclaiming political, economic, and cultural control of ancestral lands.
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New research from the University of Kansas has found that the movement has grown rapidly across the country. California and Washington are the two states that have seen the most returns, but the Upper Midwest, Central Plains, New England and Mid-Atlantic have all also seen numerous documented returns.
California has returned over 100,000 acres of land to Native tribes and announced plans to return at least 7.5 million more acres.
A 2019 ScienceDirect study showed that Native-managed lands foster as much or more biodiversity than protected areas, which could be key in mitigating the negative impact of extractive agriculture.
Guests:
Angela Mooney D’Arcy (Acjachemen, Juaneno), executive director and founder of the Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples, and board member of the Acjachemen Tongva Land Conservancy
Corrina Gould (Ohlone), tribal spokesperson for the Confederated Villages of Lisjan, and co-director of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust