Indigenous Land Trusts

Indigenous Land Trusts and Similar Entities

To reclaim land-based relationships, some Indigenous communities have decided to explore the land trust model and form an Indigenous-led land trust (ILT).

An ILT is an organization where the form, purposes, and activities are established and operated by Indigenous people, including holding and caring for lands. ILTs may be somewhat like other land trusts, but are tailored to the priorities and concepts of that Indigenous Nation or community. Goals might include ecological conservation, cultural revitalization and learning, sacred spaces and ceremony, healing, growing food or housing capacity, and exercising self-governance.

An ILT can be formed by a particular Nation or community, or can come from one or more Indigenous sectors or communities acting at a grassroots level. While an ILT is often a not-for-profit corporation and a registered charity, similar functions may be achieved through alternative or more Indigenous-oriented structures.

The resources below have been produced by Alliance of Canadian Land Trusts (ACLT), our partners, and others. They are presented here to assist ILTs, Indigenous communities, and similar organizations as they explore land holding, Land Back, and the reassertion of relationships, self-governance, and cultural practices on the land.

Explore further

Resources below include studies and materials on Indigenous partnerships and ILTs in the first section, general land trust tools applicable to ILTs in the second, and Indigenous engagement pages from other land trust alliances in the third.

More resources will be added soon, including notes on applying Indigenous elements in conservation easement agreements, decolonizing not-for-profit bylaws and governance, and other technical documents.

Research and reflections on Indigenous Partnerships and ILTs

• Indigenous-Municipal Land Case Studies, Ian Attridge, ACLT, January 2026
• Indigenous Land Trusts: Opportunities and Challenges, Ian Attridge, ACLT, March 2025
• Indigenous Land Trusts and Land Back, Ian Attridge, ACLT, October 2024
• Land Trusts and Indigenous Peoples: The Canadian Context, Kristi Leora Gansworth, Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership, May 2024
• Land trusts can help protect ecologically sensitive land in cottage country. Here’s how they work, Sasha Chapman, Cottage Life, May 2024
• Potential for Partnerships: Indigenous Communities, Municipalities and Environmental Groups Collaborating Together(Preliminary Findings), Ian Attridge, ACLT, April 2024
• Indigenous Land Trusts: Using and Transcending Setler Colonial Legal Frameworks, Clint Jacobs and Leora Gansworth, October 2023
• Indigenous-led Land Trusts: An Exercise of Self-Determination, (Kristi) Leora Gansworth and Ian Attridge, Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership, August 2022
• Conservation Through Reconciliation Partnership & Indigenous Land Trusts, Robin Roth, Ian Attridge, Lisa McLaughlin, Megan Pagniello, Conservation Through Reconciliation Partnership, October 2021

Practical resources for building an ILT

• IPCA Knowledge Basket, Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership
• Land Trust Starter Guide, with sections on forming an ILT, and relevant legal steps, legislation and guidance materials – ACLT
  
• Land Trust Assessment Tool, with Standards and Practices plus sample policies – ACLT, LTABC, OLTA, ROCQ
• Ecological Gifts Program, with description of this federal program that provides tax benefits for donations of ecologically sensitive lands – ECCC
• Treaty Land Sharing Network, to connect farmers and Indigenous land users – Treaty Land Sharing Network

More on Indigenous engagement from land trust alliances

• Indigenous Relations and Land Trusts, Alliance of Canadian Land Trusts
  
• Indigenous Land Trusts, Ontario Land Trust Alliance
  
• Indigenous Engagement, Land Trust Alliance of British Columbia
• Indigenous Solidarity, Canadian Network of Community Land Trusts
• Indigenous Land Relationships, Return, Access and Stewardship, Land Trust Alliance (U.S.)