Land Back for Climate Justice: The Taos Pueblo people

By: Hamdi Elmi
Hamdi Elmi is a student enjoys learning about enviornmental justice and recognizing Indigenous struggles for land rights. 

When we discuss the climate crisis, we often focus on technology and carbon emission. However, it's important to look at who has been removed from it, and who is struggling to protect it. Land is not just about territory or resources, for many Indigenous and front-line communities land is identity, memory, and medicine. If we do not begin the process of returning land to its rightful stewards there is no clear path to climate justice.

The Land Back movement is a demand, not a slogan. It calls for repair, it means return stolen Indigenous land and accord deep respect to the knowledge Indigenous communities have about how to exist with the earth. That knowledge is not hypothetical, it has been practiced as a lived experience for generations and it sustained ecosystems long before colonialism and capitalism disrupted them. When we give land back, caretaking can begin again.

A powerful example is the return of Blue Lake and over 48,000 acres surrounding it to the Taos Pueblo people in New Mexico. For decades, the Pueblo resisted the government trying to take back their sacred lake. The U.S.government had taken their lake and added it to their national forest. After years of advocacy, the U.S.government finally restored land for the Pueblo in 1970. Since that time, the Taos have protected Blue Lake​ from logging, pollution, and overdevelopment, and they have treated Blue Lake like a living relative instead of an extractable resource. This stewardship is a cultural necessity and climate solution, protecting biodiversity and protecting intact ecosystems.

Frontline communities experience the most severe consequences of climate change yet are by far the most consistent caretakers of nature. In preserving forests and water systems, they prevent climate change and preserve life. Genuine climate justice demands that we recognize the colonial histories that have dispossessed and hurt frontline communities, honor Indigenous control, and helps land back initiatives. Land rights do not come after other considerations. They are at the absolute center of any just and sustainable climate resolution.

References: 

• “The Milestone for Public Lands You’ve Never Heard Of, and Why It Matters Today.” National Parks Conservation Association, 2020, www.npca.org/articles/2779-the-milestone-for-public-lands-you-ve-never-heard-of-and-why-it-mattersLinks to an external site.. 
• “ABOUT | Taos Pueblo.” Taos Pueblo, taospueblo.com/about/ Links to an external site.
• “BLUE LAKE – Taos Pueblo.” Taospueblo.com, 2025, taospueblo.com/blue-lake/?utm Links to an external site.