Land Acknowledgment
LA Climate Week takes place across the cultural region of Los Angeles — a region shaped by many lands, waters, and peoples.
As you engage with LA Climate Week, you are doing so on the ancestral and unceded lands of Indigenous peoples whose relationships to this region long predate the city, county, or state as we know them today.
Why We Offer This Acknowledgement
If you are participating in LA Climate Week, you are engaging with work that is rooted in land.
For us, offering a land acknowledgement is one way to recognize that climate action is inseparable from Indigenous stewardship, colonization, and ongoing Indigenous presence. It is not meant to be comprehensive, instructional, or definitive.
We share this acknowledgement with humility, aware that we are learning and that words alone are not enough.
The Land and the Region
LA Climate Week is not limited to the City of Los Angeles. It spans a broader cultural region — including many neighborhoods, watersheds, ecosystems, and communities across the greater Los Angeles area.
This region includes the ancestral and unceded lands of multiple Indigenous peoples. Indigenous communities are not only part of history; they are present today, continuing to live, organize, and steward land throughout the region.
We recognize that naming land and history is complex, and we approach this acknowledgement without assuming completeness or precision.
Acknowledgement Is a Practice
You may encounter land acknowledgements in many spaces. While recognition matters, it does not replace action, relationship-building, or accountability.
For LA Climate Week, acknowledging the land is part of an ongoing practice. We are not perfect in this work. We are committed to learning, listening, and doing better — especially when Indigenous communities tell us we have missed something or need to change course.
Our intention is to center Indigenous presence and responsibility in climate work, while recognizing that this commitment must be demonstrated over time, not declared once.
Reflecting on Land and Responsibility
Why include a land acknowledgement at all?
Are you speaking on behalf of Indigenous communities?
Why aren’t specific tribes listed by name?
How can I learn more?
Holding This With Care
If you are hosting an LA Climate Week event and are considering including a land acknowledgement, it can be helpful to first reflect on relationships.
Many Indigenous leaders emphasize that meaningful acknowledgement is rooted in right relations — not just words. Where relationships exist, best practice is to invite Indigenous community members to participate directly, rather than speaking about the land on their behalf.
When appropriate and welcomed, this may look like:
- Inviting Indigenous neighbors to attend the event
- If in right relations, inviting an Indigenous community member to offer a welcome to the land
- Following that welcome with a brief land acknowledgement, offered by the host
In this approach, a welcome from Indigenous community members comes first. A land acknowledgement by non-Indigenous hosts follows — not as a substitute for relationship, but as a reflection of responsibility.
We recognize that not all organizers have existing relationships, and that building trust takes time. If this is the case, it is okay to keep an acknowledgement simple, to focus on learning, and to avoid making assumptions about representation.
What matters most is approaching this practice with sincerity, respect, and a commitment to learning — rather than treating it as a requirement or performance.
Continuing to LearnThis acknowledgement reflects where we are now, not where we believe the work ends.We expect this page to evolve as our understanding grows and as we learn from Indigenous communities and partners. If you have thoughtful feedback or resources to share, we welcome hearing from you.