Abstract
Planning and other fields have embraced the use of land acknowledgments, but these acknowledgments fail to address the original sin of settler colonialism—land theft—if not coupled with action. Indigenous Nations in the United States have ceaselessly worked to regain access to and authority over their landscapes since the time of dispossession. The Land Back movement seeks to return land to Indigenous peoples and is a tangible and impactful phenomenon for land use and environmental planners. Though there is plenty scholarship on impacts and methods of land dispossession, understanding where and how land is being returned is thus far less understood. Through keyword and website searches, we identify and descriptively summarize more than 100 news stories about land transfers to Tribes in the United States. This overview serves as a means for illustrating and better understanding the temporal patterns, spatial distribution, and mechanisms of land returned as part of this Indigenous-led movement. We conclude by discussing how land use and environmental planners can move beyond acknowledgments and better support Land Back and Indigenous sovereignty as this movement continues to grow.
Introduction
“... [N]o society can ever have an ethical relationship to a place it stole.” (Estes, 2019a)
The Land Back movement, which aims to return land wrongfully taken from Indigenous peoples across the globe, advances a centuries-long history of Indigenous-led resistance. In the U.S., although getting land back has been a goal for Indigenous nations since the arrival of European settlers in 1492, the Land Back movement has gained more attention over the last decade or so, concurrent with prominent Indigenous-led protests and the recent surge in land acknowledgments. Land acknowledgments are statements that generally recognize the original peoples of a specific place, can vary widely in structure, and have become more commonplace in the U.S., as well as other similarly situated nations (e.g., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand).
Land acknowledgments can take months, sometimes years, to craft, and this form of recognition is an important step toward addressing legacies of harm. However,
“[e]very moment spent agonizing over land acknowledgment wording is time that could be used to actually support Indigenous people.” (Beyond Land Acknowledgment: A Guide, 2021)
Several Indigenous and ally scholars have tactfully weighed in on the performativity of land acknowledgments and the need for institutions to go beyond words and commit to taking substantive action, and this includes planners and planning institutions (Goeman, 2020; Jourdan et al., 2023; Stewart-Ambo and Yang, 2021; Vowel, 2016, 2024). For example, the California Chapter of the American Planning Association offered a “Guide to Land Acknowledgement” that calls for taking action, being accountable and educating oneself but what does that really look like for planners? (American Planning Association, California Chapter, 2021). These statements evade a deeper conversation within planning about its continued complicity in settler colonialism.
Settler colonialism disrupts Indigenous relationships to their ancestral lands through ongoing legacies of overt and systematic land theft, extraction of resources for short-term profit, state control of racialized people, and repeated attempted genocides (Estes, 2013; Moreton-Robinson, 2015; Palmer, 2020; Veracini, 2011; Wolfe, 2006). Deeply embedded within this project, and further complicating issues of caring for land, are racism, patriarchy, and other forms of oppression (Arvin et al., 2013; Bonds and Inwood, 2016; Dorries and Harjo, 2020; McKay et al., 2020). Planning knowledge, skills, and training often contribute to exploiting land and harming not only Indigenous people, but all people, the non-human species we share the planet with, and entire ecosystems on which life depends (Barry et al., 2018; Porter, 2010). Without confronting and repairing the harm of these interlocking systems of oppression, land use and environmental planners in the U.S. stand little chance of effectively promoting equitable and sustainable futures in the face of rising inequity, divisive politics, and climate crises (Porter et al., 2021). As (Barry and Agyeman 2020, p. 25; citing Porter, 2010, emphasis in original)argue,
“planning is both deeply entwined with ongoing colonial projects and a potential site for unlearning the epistemological and ontological foundation of planning that undermine and exclude Indigenous authorities and ways of knowing.”
As calls for decolonization have grown, there have been parallel calls for the decolonizing of planning (Barry et al., 2023; Millard-Ball et al., 2024; Ortiz, 2022; Porter et al., 2017; Ugarte, 2014; Walker et al., 2013; Wensing and Porter, 2016). Yet, similar to land acknowledgments, the work of decolonizing planning may risk only being symbolic if it's just simply about revealing the colonial roots of planning (Ugarte, 2023). (Tuck and Yang 2012) assert that there is no decolonization without land, meaning there is a materiality of decolonial work that is often sidelined through apologies and policies. Control over land is central to the settler colonial project and is furthered by tools of the state, such as land use and environmental planning (Jourdan et al., 2023; la paperson, 2017; Porter, 2010). Thus, decolonization efforts within planning must go
“beyond the mere recognition of past wrongs…beyond the crafting of heartfelt land acknowledgement statements… [and toward] the return of land to descendants of the displaced or the restoration of full-property ownership rights.” (Jourdan et al., 2023, p. 747)
Decolonizing planning must move toward supporting the restoration of Indigenous land and life.
One of the most intriguing phenomena demonstrating Indigenous resurgence and commitments to land is the growing Land Back movement. The Land Back movement has taken off conceptually and practically due to Indigenous leadership and organizing, but little empirical research documents or analyzes this growing movement (as an exception, Van Norman, 2025). Land Back is little understood at an aggregate scale, but stands to be one of the most intellectually intriguing and impactful phenomenon on the horizon for land use and environmental planners.
Our work aims to provide preliminary empirical documentation of the growth of Land Back in the United States over the last approximately 50 years. We developed a database of land transfers from web-based searches of news stories, land conservation organization websites, and other publicly available sources. The purpose of this work is to illuminate the basic contours of the Land Back phenomenon, answering descriptive questions about what happened when, who is involved, and how the transfers unfolded. Our findings show a rapidly accelerating array of land transfers since 2010 and highlight promising avenues for future research. Our database intends to raise awareness among planning scholars and practitioners of land transfer activities consistent with Land Back and foster a collaborative research endeavor beyond our team. We conclude by highlighting opportunities and challenges for practicing land use and environmental planners with the hopes of inspiring action that goes beyond land acknowledgments to support a just land future for all beings.
Land Back rejects the exploitation of land by anyone for short-term, individualized economic gain, a key reason for the existence of planning (Dine'é Bikéyah et al., 2025; Blomley, 2004; Sandercock, 2004). Among the many challenges planners may face in better supporting Indigenous-led efforts is the deeply entrenched Western notion of land as property (Jojola, 2008; Maloney, 2025; Wildcat, 2009). Indigenous worldviews offer alternative pathways for the future if planners are willing to listen and (un)learn. We believe attention to Land Back will also require substantial reconceptualization of land use and environmental planning, perhaps heading toward a future for the field as land relationship planning.
Our work on Land Back and planning arises from a diverse array of professional and scholarly trajectories, as well as varying personal identities. Steen (Citizen of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma), Stevens (member of the Oneida Nation in Wisconsin) and Deer (Citizen of the Muscogee/Creek Nation of Oklahoma) are Indigenous women scholars. Lyles (European settler descendant) and Sylman (Black/African American) have no Tribal affiliation or claims to Native ancestry, and come to the work of Land Back as planning scholars. Together, our team has been able to leverage diverse bodies of knowledge, professional expertise, and personal experiences to conduct this research and offer perspectives on how land use and environmental planners can better engage with issues of land dispossession.
A method for mapping the movement
Attempting to define Land Back
In order to document Land Back, we needed to first define what is meant by “Land Back.” In concept, Land Back is simple—it's returning stolen land back to Indigenous people. Yet, constructing a working definition of Land Back is a complicated endeavor. Rather than provide a definitive description intended for broad usage, we pose and respond to a series of questions that can help readers understand the contours of the ongoing debate of what constitutes Land Back. In our methods section, we describe the working definition used in data collection.
Who gets to define Land Back?
Land Back is an Indigenous-led movement, and, thus, definitional authority rests solely with Indigenous people. The Land Back movement is one of many cross-cutting political efforts that connect Indigenous people globally, across colonial contexts. However, Indigenous peoples' experiences within the movement are not monolithic. What Land Back is and how it is achieved must be attuned to the specific Indigenous communities involved. As we study Land Back in its contemporary context, we must keep in mind these rich and complex Indigenous histories and realities, which invariably lead to diverse perspectives on Land Back, even within Indigenous communities in what is now the United States.
How has Land Back been discussed in the U.S. context?
In the U.S., Land Back is
“a movement that addresses the root pain of colonization – the theft of Indigenous lands, alienation of lands for resource extraction, the violence and genocide committed against Indigenous peoples for statehood and capitalism, and the hundreds of years of devastating aftereffects.” (Pieratos et al., 2021, p. 51)
While Land Back has been trending in recent years, calls for Land Back are nothing new, as Indigenous people have been fighting for their lands since European contact (Longman et al., 2020). Land Back also simultaneously represents opportunities for reconnections to the land that are both tangible and intangible. For instance, in his Atlantic article, Treuer (2021, p. 44) assuredly calls for the return of National Parks to Indigenous peoples, which admittedly would not make up for all the land that has been lost but would provide “unfettered access to… tribal homelands.” Access to land is necessary for the connection to the intangible, i.e., the resurgence of Indigenous life. Indigenous worldviews commonly understand the land with all its constituent parts (i.e., soil, water, air, plants, and animals) as relative or a web of relatives (Dunbar-Ortiz, 2014; Harjo, 2019; Simpson, 2017). “Land is foundational to people's cultural practices,” and with the return of land comes the resurgence of Indigenous languages, foodways, governance, stewardship, and more (Goeman, 2015, p. 72; Simpson, 2017).
With different understandings of what land is, how do we navigate terminology that is inherently colonial?
In the U.S., land is typically understood through the Western lens of private property, a lens many Indigenous peoples reject (Gouldhawke, 2020). In order to dispossess Indigenous people of land, land was recast as a separable object subject to human dominion that could only be held by people within a specific racialized and gendered hierarchy (Bhandar, 2018; Moreton-Robinson, 2015; Nichols, 2020). A paradox thus arises in attempting to define Land Back in ways that acknowledge Indigenous understandings of land while still engaging with Western legal concepts such as land ownership. Discussing these land transfers requires an uncomfortable compromise with colonial logics in order to create the space for decolonial possibilities (Métis in Space, 2020).
Even if we work with the Western concept of private property, how do we contend with the reality that ownership of land by settlers is only possible due to centuries of domination over Indigenous people?
The legal frameworks of treaties, legislation, and court decisions all exist on a precarious foundation of concepts and precedents that justify theft of land, resources, livelihoods, and even existence (Deer, 2015; Estes, 2019b; Tuck and Yang, 2012; Williams, 2005). Indigenous people have fought for generations and continue to fight in the courts to get these legal foundations overturned (Heath, 2026). Even though the Doctrine of Discovery was repudiated by the Vatican in 2023, it still serves as the legal foundation for American property law and (continued) Indigenous land dispossession (d'Errico, 2026; Terrill, 2023).
Despite these legal precedents, Indigenous people's continued existence speaks to the incompleteness of settler colonialism, and, thus, the opportunity for disrupting the settler status quo. Domination of Indigenous people and land may be part of our past and present but it does not have to be a part of our future. Alongside the enduring legal battles, giving land back is another way to undermine settler sovereignty over land.
To whom should the land be returned to be considered Land Back?
Some Indigenous peoples have clear legal status as sovereign nations within the United States—for example, the 575 federally recognized Tribal nations—while others struggle to gain such status. The federal recognition system is a creation of the U.S. federal government that further controls the resources available to Tribal communities, but also provides important legal standing and procedures for exerting Indigenous sovereignty (Gonzales and Evans, 2013). Additionally, many Indigenous peoples shared—and fought over—control of lands before and after the arrival of Europeans, and many others have been forcibly moved from their ancestral lands (Dunbar-Ortiz, 2014; Graeber and Wengrow, 2021; McDonnell, 2015; Saunt, 2020). Multiple and conflicting land claims are a byproduct of the settler colonial project that makes Land Back increasingly complex.
Lastly, how should the land be transferred to be considered Land Back?
When Tribal nations use revenues to buy back land, Indigenous people are being forced to pay for land previously and unjustly taken from them. When land is returned to a Tribal nation without payment, but the land is subject to restrictive covenants or even local zoning laws, Indigenous people may not freely steward the land in accordance with their own values. We must also be careful to avoid terms like donating, which imply charity rather than justice. Our interpretation is that genuine Land Back-aligned land transfers involve the shifting of full title at minimal or no cost to Indigenous people. Moreover, transferring parties' expectations for future management should be de-emphasized, deferring instead to the sovereignty of the Indigenous people involved.
However, this does not reflect the reality of the work. We choose to proceed in the messy middle ground of ideals and realities by being as transparent as possible about our measurement decisions, while also knowing that our approaches will be—and should be—contested on multiple grounds. For this research effort, we understand Land Back to broadly mean that Indigenous people gain control of their ancestral lands in the Western legal sense of property ownership, even as such ownership may be anathema to those same Indigenous people. This definition understands the recipients of land transfers aligned with Land Back as Tribal nations and Tribally-affiliated land management organizations, with the returning parties consisting of a wide array of individual, business, and government entities. However, we do not include land transfers involving the U.S. federal government due to the exceedingly complex issues that arise from the legal treaty relationships between two or more sovereign nations (for a substantial review of federal land transfers, see Glendenning et al., 2023).
Actualizing the Land Back movement involves different forms of land transfer activities that could be of interest to planning scholars and practitioners. Our working definition of Land Back, as noted above, focuses on those returning title to land, as understood in the Western tradition. Practically speaking, the Sustainable Economics Law Center (SELC) offers a concise summary of options for transferring land that is relevant for characterizing acts of Land Back (Sustainable Economies Law Center, 2022). The SELC's list is inclusive of options less-than-title, such as land sharing arrangements without the transfer of title. For the scope of this research, we exclude efforts that do not result in Indigenous people holding title, such as leasing or co-management arrangements. We recognize that this leads to only a partial representation of Land Back efforts, but the significance in holding title in our current property system cannot be understated. Holding title is a means not an end in the pursuit for Land Back.
Data collection
We seek to answer two research questions to establish a baseline understanding of the emergent phenomenon of Land Back:
1) When and where have instances of land return to Indigenous peoples occurred in the United States?
2) How do spatial, temporal, and other characteristics of these events vary?
We developed a database from web-based searches of news stories, land conservation organization websites, and other publicly available sources. We collected information only for instances of Land Back that had already been reported out publicly, as opposed to performing title searches or engaging with confidential information from Tribes. Additional work to assess cases more deeply should engage with relevant Tribal data governance protocols.
Data was collected through bidirectional news searches, concluding with the earliest instances we could find in news articles up through December 31, 2023. We searched news archives from the direction of land return-related keywords, such as “#landback,” “Land Back,” and “land return” with terms for the receiving nation, such as “Tribe” and “nation.” We also searched from the direction of states (e.g., “Alaska,” “Arkansas,” … “Wyoming”) and the direction of each of the 574 federally-recognized Tribes (e.g., “Poarch Band of Creek Indians”), using the Bureau of Indian Affairs list as of 2022 to use the legal name of the Tribal nation. Many instances of land transfers identified in our search received coverage in multiple news stories or webpages. We focused on stories of the direct transfer of land from non-Indigenous individuals, families, businesses, and non-profit organizations, such as land trusts, religious organizations, and local and state governments. Again, transfers involving federal lands to Tribes were not included in this study.
We limited our geographical scope to the United States. While land transfers to Indigenous people are happening all across the world, the specific legal mechanisms available for such transfers are context-dependent. No two countries are the same, even if they share similar settler colonial histories. For example, even though Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States (CANZUS) are all settler colonial states, the histories between the governments of those respective countries and the Indigenous people of those places are vastly different. The land tenure histories and current realities for Indigenous people are diverse, so, for clarity of comparison across stories, we focused on one context: the United States.
Limitations
By focusing on publicly available data, the United States, and full-title transfers, this study inevitably limits the degree to which we represent the phenomenon of Land Back. A full census of Land Back activities will remain methodologically difficult to create over a landscape of over 500 Tribal entities and innumerable current landowners, notwithstanding the transfers that are intentionally kept private. Moreso, disclosure of private transactions is ethically fraught as it might undermine relationships between returning parties and Tribes in locations where Indigenous-settler relationships are particularly contentious. Still, we provide as robust an assessment of this topic as possible with the current methodologies and data publicly available to us. While future research may involve systematic land records scans to document all instances of land transfers to Tribal entities, we hope researchers will be attuned to the potential risks of violating data sovereignty protocols.
Relying on news stories introduces heterogeneity in the content and reliability of the data, as the stories may vary in length and depth, the reporters will vary in their understanding of the issues, and the news outlets will have different perspectives that impact their coverage (Earl et al., 2004; Hodgetts and Chamberlain, 2014; Ortiz et al., 2005; Weidmann, 2015; Woolley, 2000). However, event counts from media sources in sociological research are commonly used when other sources are unavailable (e.g., for protests or conflicts). Wetzel (2009) uses a similar data collection strategy to build a database of Native American land seizures in order to understand them as a strategy of contention. While returning land is not a protest, it is an activity meant to challenge the status quo (Maney and Oliver, 2001; Thorpe, 2014). By coding these stories for basic characteristics, we sought to draw more attention to this movement while acknowledging the limits of using only secondary sources.
Data analysis
We coded specific characteristics of each land return instance, including the variables shown in Table 1. More specifically, information of interest to scholars and practitioners about these land transfers includes (but is not limited to): where and when they have occurred; the amount of land (in acres); the types of groups that are involved (e.g., Tribal government or Tribally-affiliated non-governmental organizations, private landowner, business, religious, local government, state government, among others); and, where available, more specific details on the process of the transfer.
Table 1
| Variable | Measurement | Justification | Limitations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spatial variables(s) | |||
| Location | Name of U.S. state and county | For mapping data | Does not include the specific location of the parcel |
| Temporal variable(s) | |||
| Year | Year of transfer | For showing the trend over time | Precision to the level of calendar date (day, month, year) is not always available |
| Other variable(s) | |||
| Size | Acreage, categorized as range (0–9 acres, 10–99 acres, 100–999 acres, 1,000–9,999 acres, or 10,000+ acres) | For comparing the size of transfers | Ordinal measurement is used because exact acreages are not always reported |
| Receiving Tribe/organization | Name of federally-recognized Tribal nation or Tribally-affiliated organization | For identifying the Tribal communities impacted by this work | There may be a limit to publicly available data for this. |
| Returning entity | Type of entity (private individual or family, business, religious institution, local government, or state government) | For comparing types of entities returning land | These categories are not exhaustive of possible types of returning entities, excluding land returned from federal agencies. |
| Transfer details | Open-ended notes on details like the type of land returned, the motivations of the returning entities, the type of land transfer process, etc. | For adding context to the transfer | Due to the wide variation in source documents, each event does not consistently and reliably have the same details |
Variables, measurement, justification, and limitations.
The spatial data consists of the state and county of the land transfer, along with the longitude and latitude of the center of the county where the transfer occurred. We did not include specific locations of the returned parcels in our database out of respect for privacy, and we do not require discrete boundaries for our analysis. The only temporal variable is the year the transfer took place, or at least the best estimate of the year based on the news story. The data was summarized using descriptive statistics and mapped using ESRI StoryMap to visually identify spatial patterns across the U.S.
Results
Our database contains 102 distinct instances of land return between 1972 and December 31, 2023. We found that overall land transfers have surged in recent years and are widely distributed across the United States, with notable clusters and gaps in some regions. There are intriguing patterns across time and space, as well as variation in process characteristics, all of which merit additional research.
Patterns across time
Figure 1 shows the number of cases of land transferred for each decade within our database. We see an increase in land transfer activity over time, with land transfer events more than doubling over the last two decades. In terms of the rate, our data captures an increase from less than 1 transfer per year prior to 2010 to 2 or more per year in the last 10 years. More than 80% of the transfers occurred since 2010, which we interpret as a major increase, even accounting for potential recency bias in news articles. The timing of this increase aligns with a surge of high profile Indigenous-led resistance movements across the U. S., for example, protests against the Keystone XL Pipeline, Standing Rock and the Dakota Access Pipeline (#noDAPL), and Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) at Mauna Kea protests. It is the sustained resurgence of Indigenous social, economic and political strength and visibility, as embodied in language and cultural preservation, movements to increase awareness of and atonement for boarding schools and other forms of systematic oppression, and increased economic power of Tribes, that has catapulted Land Back into mainstream consciousness.
Figure 1
Patterns across the landscape
Figure 2 illustrates three broad clusters representing about 84% (86) of the total events: the Pacific Coast and Northern Rockies (California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana), the Upper Midwest and Central Plains (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska) and, finally, New England and the Mid-Atlantic (from Maine along the East coast to North Carolina). California has the most events reported (20), with Washington state a close second (14). Our methodology is not exhaustive, so states with no events documented do not necessarily mean no land transfers have occurred there.
Figure 2
Prior to 2000 (pink squares), land transfers were sparse and lacked discernible clusters. In the 2000s (green triangles), clustering began in Washington state. This trend continues in Washington state into the 2010s (orange diamonds), and expands to California. In the 2020s (purple circles), the dominant pattern of the three main regional clusters begins to solidify, and the overall spread continues to grow. Namely, the West Coast (California, Oregon, and Washington) accounts for about 40% of the national total (41), while the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast account for roughly 27% (28), and the Midwest and Northern Great Plains account for another almost 18% (18).
The size of parcels returned varies widely from less than an acre (e.g., a cemetery) to more than 10,000 acres (e.g., a large forest parcel; see Figure 3). Almost a third of all events in the database measured between 100 and 999 acres. There is an almost even split between transfers that were either under and over 100 acres. This data exhibits remarkable scale, demonstrating that Land Back encompasses everything from small but often culturally or spiritually important parcels to parcels large enough to potentially change the economic, social, and ecological trajectories of Tribes.
Figure 3
Who's involved in Land Back?
Our data indicates a wide variation in the Tribal nations to whom land has been returned. More than 75 distinct Tribal nations (about 1 in 8 federally recognized Tribes) and 8 Native-focused non-governmental organizations have received land. Lands have been returned to larger nations likely to be familiar at least in name to many people, such as the Crow, Dakota, Nez Perce, and Ojibwe. Land has also been returned to smaller nations whose history and continued existence most people remain unaware of, at least outside highly localized areas, such as the Monacans, Passamaquoddy, Santa Clara Pueblo, and Squaxin. Only a few Tribal nations have benefitted from multiple (i.e., more than two) land returns, such as the Nez Perce Tribe (Ellyn, 2018; Paterson, 2023; Profita, 2020; Trust for Public Land, n.d.).
In terms of the returning entities, private landowners constitute about a third of the returning parties, with fairly evenly spread across the other types, as shown in Figure 4. The non-profits involved are typically environmental organizations or land trusts, as there is an emerging awareness in the land conservation movement of the need to deeply engage with Native nations on a sustained basis (Wilson et al., 2025). Religious institutions account for about 13% of transfers. Another roughly 12% of transfers arise from corporate donations of land, typically from natural resource companies engaged in resource extraction or utility companies. These transfers can be difficult to categorize as genuine Land Back, however, as some instances appear to arise from court-ordered settlements, as in the case of PG&E in California (Mangas and Robinson, 2021; Moreno, 2019). Meanwhile, state and local governments each account for about 11% of transfers. These transfers ranged from returning control over burial grounds or cemeteries to recognition of prior illegal land takings. The two transfers involving a university were represented by actions taken by Chico State University in California (Gutierrez, 2023; Stetson, 2022).
Figure 4
Overall, our findings make clear that the number of cases where land is being returned to Indigenous communities has increased over time and space, even accounting for methodological limitations. We see regional clusters and, while there do not appear to be concentrations of returns to specific Tribes, we do see clustering among the returning parties, more often private individuals and families. In general, these events have involved a diversity of actors and sites, reinforcing the point that no two land transfers are identical. A key dimension of Land Back is that it is place-based and relational—Land Back is responsive to the context, landscape, and histories involved (Pieratos et al., 2021). Our data only begins to show this dynamic, and more in-depth case studies with interviews of those involved are needed to really understand the nuances of the people and processes of Land Back.
Discussion
A robust database of land transfers consistent with our working definition of Land Back provides an important empirical baseline for practice-oriented tracking and dissemination. More pointedly, our database shows that land is being transferred to Indigenous communities at an increasing frequency. Land Back is happening—maybe even in your own state. Our data also shows that it's not just the U.S. federal government that is transferring land. Non-profits, private individuals, and even lower levels of government are becoming active participants in land transfer processes. As a potentially growing trend, planning practice should take notice and prepare to be engaged in some capacity.
Intersection with environmental conservation
One notable takeaway from the data is the prevalence of environmental organizations in these stories. Recognition and support for Indigenous-led land stewardship within biodiversity conservation, in particular, has grown tremendously in recent years (e.g., Artelle et al., 2019; Dawson et al., 2021; Garnett et al., 2018; Hudson and Vodden, 2020; Nitah, 2021; Vasquez, 2019). So much so that the Land Trust Alliance, which supports land trusts of all sizes across the nation, has created dedicated programming and support for both Indigenous-led land trusts and allied member land trusts (Land Trust Alliance, n.d.). Some of that support includes developing a “Partnerships for Indigenous Land Access and Return” toolkit, hosting an annual First Stewards Summit for the last 2 years, and uplifting stories of land return and rematriation at its annual conference (Wilson et al., 2025). This begins to illustrate a way that land transfers for Indigenous communities can be part of a land use and environmental planning strategy.
Our database shows the substantial involvement of land trusts, with land trusts representing over three quarters the NGO transfers (14 out of the 18). There has been an ongoing and growing reckoning within land conservation about its settler colonial roots that has instigated projects focused on expanding access to land for Indigenous communities (Eichler and Baumeister, 2021; Murdock, 2021; Stein et al., 2023; Wilson et al., 2025). Conservation land trusts have also grown as a tool used by Indigenous communities to receive land transfers (Middleton Manning, 2011). For instance, the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council represents 10 federally-recognized Tribes in the Northern California area and has engaged in two land returns totaling over 600 acres (InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council, n.d.). In Maine, the First Light community of non-Native land-oriented organizations and the Wabanaki Commission, representing 5 Tribal nations, work together to support several land return projects across the state (Dawnland Return, n.d.). Collaborating with land trusts is already a key aspect of conservation planning, so planners can expand the impact of this work by supporting opportunities that also align with Land Back.
A different approach to site selection
As mentioned earlier, our database shows a range of site types that were involved in land transfers—from small quarter-acre plots to thousand-acre landholdings. There are many factors to consider when an opportunity to transfer land presents itself. The proliferation of land acknowledgments has made it more difficult for planners to be unaware of the history of the land they work within. Understanding the connections Indigenous communities have to the places you live and work is crucial for the land transfer process.
Indigenous people have diverse and complex relationships with their ancestral landscapes. Some land transfer stories involved places of profound spiritual significance, such as the return of Tuluwat—the spiritual center of the universe for the Wiyot Tribe in what-is-now Eureka, CA (Imbler, 2019). Others involve areas important for maintaining or reviving the ability to access traditional foods (Ryan, 2022), protect burial sites (Holding Eagle, 2023), practice cultural ceremonies (Connelly, 2023; Wilson, 2018), and reconnect with ancestral gathering spots (Werk, 2023). Others still involve lands potentially useful for participation in the (global) market economy, whether in ways understood as sustainable, profitable, or both.
Land importance, condition and management are all intertwined from a Tribal perspective. Culturally significant lands may have been degraded prior to land return, whether intentionally or not, by development, extractive practices relating to natural resources, and pollution; however, that doesn't make them any less significant or release Indigenous communities from their obligations of stewardship and care (Liboiron, 2021). Unlike traditional planning practice, it is not up to the planner to determine “suitable” sites for land transfer to Tribes. This risks perpetuating historic and ongoing environmental injustices, such as making only less desirable lands available to marginalized people or otherwise limiting land transfers to sites with “no conceivable use by local agencies” (Risling Baldy et al., 2024, p. 29). Rather, planners must follow the lead of Indigenous communities, not the real estate market, and support the process of healing land as meaningful opportunities emerge.
Other takeaways for land use and environmental planning practice
We were unable to discern from the details provided through our data sources whether a transfer involved local land use and environmental planners. More in-depth case study analysis, as mentioned above, would aid in better understanding how planners may be involved in these processes, if at all. However, even without this specific data, it is still possible to elaborate on additional ways in which planners can be helpful.
An Indigenous community may regain title to a portion of land within their ancestral territory, but there are other systems that they must contend with. For example, visions for the land may be incompatible with its current zoned use, or the permitting processes for conducting certain activities with the land are burdensome. Although Tribal trust lands are not subject to state and local property taxation or land use laws, holding trust lands is only available to federally-recognized Tribes and, even then, the process to transition land into trust can take years (Neal, 2022; for an overview on tribal lands, Murray, 2021). Additionally, receiving title to the land does not quell potential opposition from adjacent neighbors or the surrounding community (Mackey, 2016). These are challenges where planners can be particularly supportive in navigating. Additional support could include surveying and mapping, providing technical assistance before and after the transfer, and major commitments of funds to sustain long-term post-transfer stewardship. Planners will be faced with important and difficult questions about their obligations throughout the transfer process.
Consider the capacity of Indigenous communities
Some Tribes have the planning and administrative capacity in order to engage with potential returning parties, which can involve years or decades-long relationship building; ensure all legal and financial proceedings are proper and beneficial to the Tribe; and prepare for and carry out land management once the transfer is complete. This allows them the ability to move quickly when land becomes available and present a competitive option compared to other possible interests the landholder may consider. However, this isn't a universal experience. For Tribes that are under-resourced, lack an existing landbase, lack employees, or are not federally recognized, engaging in a land transfer may be more difficult. There is an opportunity for planners to bring resources to the table (when requested) to further Land Back efforts. Additionally, those interested in gifting land to Tribes should remain aware of these potential challenges as they work with communities to do so.
Challenge assumptions within land use and environmental planning
There are also other ways planners can be of service to the Land Back movement, beyond providing technical assistance. Planning scholarship has historically called for planners to advocate for specific groups of the community and, increasingly, learn from Indigenous people and others whose work and perspective too often sit at the margins of our profession (Brand and Miller, 2020; Checkoway, 1994; Davidoff, 1965; Doan, 2011; Dorries and Harjo, 2020; Jacobs, 2019; Lane and Hibbard, 2005; Timothy et al., 2024; Ugarte, 2014; Vasudevan and NovaE, 2022). However, despite a trend toward pluralism in planning scholarship, it is important to acknowledge the colonial roots of concepts fundamental to planning that continue to contribute to ongoing Indigenous land dispossession.
Indigenous people are not “stakeholders”
Fundamental to planning processes in the U.S. is ensuring that all voices are heard. Following the communicative turn in planning theory in the 1990s, planning has been thought of as the arena where different segments of the public deliberate and build consensus (Forester, 1999). In this way, planners encourage equal (and sometimes equitable) participation across social difference as a form of inclusion. For instance, extending an invitation to Tribal representatives to attend a public meeting or organizing focus groups specifically for Tribal members within a broader community.
While seemingly admirable, there are unacknowledged histories and power asymmetries embedded within these approaches. First and foremost, Tribal nations are not special interest groups or, more commonly, a “stakeholder.” The stakeholder paradigm equates Indigenous relationships to place with other relationships and further legitimates state and private interests and control over Indigenous lands (Reed et al., 2024). This leaves Indigenous land dispossession as the status quo. As Porter and Barry (2016, p. 41) describe in relation to environmental planning processes,
“...[S]uch an approach… is a nice gesture, but it doesn't fundamentally change the decisions being made at the table, what is on or off the agenda for those decision-makers, how the table is constituted, or where power is located.”
Land Back is not about further incorporating Indigenous peoples into ongoing colonial practices. It's about taking actions that further Indigenous self-determination.
Working with multiple understandings of land
Planners concern themselves primarily with how land should be used, but less so with what land actually is. As a result of settler colonialism, land is assumed to be an object for which humans have dominion, and this view is reinforced by the institution of private property (Bhandar, 2018; Moreton-Robinson, 2015; Nichols, 2020). Access to land is mediated through property, and while planning may deal directly with land, it has a complicated relationship with property.
Planning has historically distanced itself from the concept of property with its focus on the utility of land, but scholars have argued that property is deeply entangled within planning (Blomley, 2017; Dorries, 2012, 2017, 2022; Jacobs and Paulsen, 2009; Krueckeberg, 1995; Wideman, 2021). “The preservation of private property and the protections of the rights of landowners relies on the disciplinary powers of the state,” and planning, as a police power, protects the propertied interests of the settler (Dorries, 2022, p. 308). Planning leaves the private ownership of land unquestioned, and struggles to see the meaning of land as multifarious (Becher, 2023; Maloney, 2025).
Yet, there is plenty of scholarship that challenges Western notions of land, particularly by Indigenous feminist scholars (e.g. Goeman, 2015; Simpson, 2017; Watts, 2013). There is a growing body of work on Indigenous planning that calls out this and other differences brought about when engaging Indigenous worldviews (Borrows, 1997; Engle et al., 2022; Freitas, 2015; Harjo, 2019; Hibbard et al., 2008; Jojola, 2008; Porter and Barry, 2016; Porter et al., 2017; Prusak et al., 2016; Sandercock, 2004; Turriff, 2020; Turriff and Barry, 2023; Walker et al., 2013). Jojola (2008, p. 43), in describing the emergent paradigm of Indigenous planning, states that Indigenous communities have always planned, and Indigenous approaches to planning are built on land-based practices over successive generations, where
“land [becomes] the embodiment of collective groups whose intent was to sustain the productivity of land for those who inherit it.”
Conventional Western planning can respectfully learn from Indigenous ontologies, knowledges, and cosmologies that position land “as a set of life-giving relations rather than as an object of human domination.” (Dorries, 2022, p. 312). Expanding what land is within planning has the potential to extend the possibilities for more substantive engagements with Land Back.
Revisiting ‘land use'
In reference to the lands returned by treaty in New Zealand, Matunga (2000, pp. 39–40) clarifies that “returning resources alone is not enough,” and with it must also come the restoration of Indigenous planning and governance (see also Livesey, 2019). While planners are not landowners, they still exert a level of control over land through planning systems and practices that may still be in place after a land transfer. Governing land through use is another form of exclusion (Blomley, 2017; Freitas, 2015; Lombardo and Wideman, 2018; Valverde, 2005; Wideman, 2021; Wideman and Lombardo, 2019; Williams et al., 2023). “Land use” is a “deceivingly neutral term” that seeks to indirectly constrain humans, other-than-humans, and relations between them to conform to a colonial propriety (Wideman and Lombardo, 2019, p. 2). Taken seriously, Land Back challenges the dominant ethos of land as something to “use” and re-focuses our attention to the different ways people understand and relate to land.
Even planners totally unfamiliar with Indigenous thinking should be able to see convergence with thematic trends in our field, including emphasis on belonging, intergenerational sustainability, multispecies justice, and more (e.g. Barry and Agyeman, 2020; Engle et al., 2022; Houston et al., 2018). Paramount to this relational turn is the importance of planners improving their understanding of Indigenous peoples' connections to land. While an instance of Land Back may be narrowly executed as a legal property transaction, there's danger in seeing this work as simply acres returned. Land Back is place-based, it's relational, and it offers planners opportunities to learn from and with Indigenous peoples about all the living beings that constitute land. This learning can lay the groundwork for a transformation from land use planning to land relationship planning.
In the words of Steve Laravie Jr., the most promising path to a sustainable and equitable future lies in “re-landing” ourselves (pers. comm). “Re-landing” is a concept Lavarie emphasizes is not his own but instead comes from the land itself and involves internalizing the knowledge that our physical, spiritual, and political lives are inseparable from land as much as they are from our families, friends, and society. “Re-landing” would require planners to move beyond words (i.e., land acknowledgments) to fundamentally transform land use planning. Land Back provides planners a promising, ethical, and redemptive pathway forward. If planners aim to advance equitable and sustainable development, planners need to abandon land “use” as a core aim, focusing instead on relational approaches to land and, more deeply, “re-landing” ourselves and the profession.
Conclusion
We sought to answer descriptive and exploratory questions about the nascent Land Back movement in the United States to demonstrate the ways people are going beyond land acknowledgments, particularly for land use and environmental planners. Our findings demonstrate that land transfers aligned with the Land Back movement are widespread and increasing in the United States, with intriguing variation across regions and states. The recent acceleration and overlap with environmental conservation point to a pressing need for engagement from land use and environmental planning practitioners and scholars.
Our research findings only scratch the surface of a rich and rapidly evolving planning and land use policy topic of great significance and potential. We hope that our database will be maintained and updated over time, although we aim to be strategic and deliberate in considering issues of Indigenous data sovereignty. The database and our core findings on a few key themes will hopefully sprout future directions for planning practice and research.
Planning has a long and storied history in the United States in its pursuit to improve the quality of life, and land has long been central to that pursuit. Understanding and engaging with these land transfers can remind planners that land is much more than its market value and build the awareness necessary to further discussions and efforts toward improving Indigenous wellbeing and flourishing. Land Back, as a movement, can push planning professionals to interrogate the continued viability of the dominant land “use” framework, and presents an opportunity for planners to transform the current conception of land use into land relationships.
Across planning scholarship and practice, themes of relationships are being embraced, through theoretical engagements with ethics of care (Davoudi and Ormerod, 2026; Jon, 2020a), post-humanism (Houston et al., 2018; Jon, 2020b; Metzger, 2019) and critical perspectives on place-making and participation (Barry and Agyeman, 2020; Novacevski, 2023; Novacevski and Crystal Legacy, 2025), in addition to engaging with decolonial theories (Ortiz, 2022; Winkler, 2024). What lies beyond this relational turn in planning remains to be seen. However, planners collectively and individually must consider their responsibility to respect Indigenous sovereignty and assist in returning land to Tribal nations and entities in accord with treaties and decolonization. Engaging with the Land Back movement is one Indigenous-led path forward.
Statements
Data availability statement
The datasets presented in this study can be found in online repositories. The names of the repository/repositories and accession number(s) can be found below: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/b5fd4cc7b73944d6ad86f9935896c593.
Author contributions
SS: Conceptualization, Visualization, Writing – review & editing. MS: Visualization, Writing – review & editing, Conceptualization. LS: Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing. WL: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. SD: Conceptualization, Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.
Funding
The author(s) declared that financial support was not received for this work and/or its publication.
Conflict of interest
The author(s) declared that this work was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Generative AI statement
The author(s) declared that generative AI was not used in the creation of this manuscript.
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Summary
Keywords
decolonization, Land Back, land use planning, environmental planning, land return, land relationships
Citation
Sylman S, Steen M, Stevens L, Lyles W and Deer S (2026) Planning for Land Back: an empirical examination of the Land Back Movement with implications for land use and environmental planning. Front. Sustain. Resour. Manag. 5:1783142. doi: 10.3389/fsrma.2026.1783142
Received
08 January 2026
Revised
24 April 2026
Accepted
28 April 2026
Published
29 May 2026
Volume
5 - 2026
Edited by
Sethulego Matebesi, University of the Free State, South Africa
Reviewed by
Mzingaye Brilliant Xaba, National University of Lesotho, Lesotho
Safri Salam, Universitas Muhammadiyah Buton, Indonesia
Updates
Copyright
© 2026 Sylman, Steen, Stevens, Lyles and Deer.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Shanasia Sylman, sgs237@cornell.edu
Disclaimer
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