It is important to acknowledge the original Indigenous people of the land within our service area. We honor the original Indigenous people by committing to work with their descendants and learn from their traditional ecological knowledge and relational world view of the land and all things living upon it.
The West Multnomah Soil & Water Conservation District acknowledges the original people whose land we are utilizing today: the Clackamas Chinook, the Willamette Tumwater, the Wasco-Wishram, the Watlata, the Multnomah, and other Chinookan peoples, as well as the Tualatin Kalapuya, the Cayuse, the Molalla, the Yakama, and other tribes and bands of the Columbia and Willamette Rivers. We recognize that we are here because of the land displacement, cultural erasure, and other sacrifices that were forced upon them. We remind ourselves that we are guests of the land that falls within our geographic service area, now known as the City of Portland, Sauvie Island, and the Tualatin Mountains. We must do our best to honor the original peoples and build a better future together. We do this by learning from Indigenous peoples and stories, valuing Indigenous voices and priorities, and continued caring of, and giving to, the air, water, plants, animals, and the ecosystems that make up this land community. To follow this acknowledgment with action, we pursue impactful partnerships with Indigenous people, tribes and their sovereign governments, and inter-tribal organizations.
Some actions we have taken following the land acknowledgement are ongoing. These are examples from Year 4:
- Provided funding and participated in a Land Care Collective event at Wapato Island Farm in September 2024. At this event, regional government staff including District staff got to network with Indigenous community leaders and engage in Land Care at the farm, including planting cover crops and harvesting potatoes. West Multnomah SWCD also provided funding for an Indigenous Land & Leadership Retreat for local Indigenous leaders in November, coordinated by the Land Care Collective.
- Continued support for Wisdom of the Elders (WOTE) Workforce Development Internship program, which provides environmental education, conservation and restoration training and career pathways for Portland’s Native American adults. WOTE is a long-time grantee of the District.
- Completed a long-planned interpretive sign project at the site of the District’s Dairy Creek section of the Sturgeon Lake restoration project (completed 2018). The District had previously committed to a sign to acknowledge restoration funders. We also contracted with Indigenous historian Dr. David Lewis to provide a narrative of the Indigenous history of Sauvie Island to share on the same sign. Indigenous artist Chanti Manon-Ferguson was contracted for the artwork, which includes plants and animals native to the island and area. The sign was installed in October 2025.
- Provided funding through the Partner Funding program to the Wapato Table Ancestral Medicine Unschool, led by longtime partner Wapato Island Farm. Through the course of the program, participants engage in monthly gatherings to foster community, skill-share, tend to the land, and develop deep relationships with the beings around them. Values at the core of Wapato Table Unschool are reciprocity, and honoring indigenous and ancestral ways of knowing. One WMSWCD staff member was enrolled in UnSchool in its first year, from October 2024 – 2025.
- Staff visited the Chachalu Museum and Cultural Center in Grand Ronde for the purpose of deepening our understanding of the history, cultures, and continued resilience of the Tribes in Oregon. In addition to seeing the exhibits at the museum, the group met with the Cultural Protection Coordinator of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, who generously shared insights about the community’s treaties, languages, and living traditions. The group also spoke with staff from the Tribe’s Ceded Lands Department to explore potential opportunities for collaboration, including stewardship efforts at the newly acquired OSU research forest in the west Tualatin Mountains.