The Natural World, Indigenous Voices – Leslie Jonas

Leslie Jonas is a native Cape Codder and eel clan member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. She is an experienced senior planning development strategist with a demonstrated history of working in tribal governments and non-profits in senior level administration and planning. Leslie has spent the past 12 years helping to build the first, native-led land conservation trust east of the Mississippi, the Native Land Conservancy.  During the past few years, she has been researching and focusing on Climate Change from the Indigenous Perspective. Currently, this work has led to her co-teaching and co-advising environmental courses in social/environmental justice at UMASS Boston and MIT, speaking publicly on Climate Change, Rewilding, Cultural Respect and Environmental Self-determination while producing educational environmental video tools for audiences across many disciplines. In 2021, she was invited to sit on the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) Advisory Board for the state of MA. where she helps to advocate for human rights to land and clean water in MA. Leslie was recently chosen as a Keystone Cooperator/Fellow by UMASS Amherst to join “Women on the Land” in the Fall where community opinion leaders come together for a 3-day retreat which focuses on forest ecology and management, wildlife management, invasive plants/insects, and land protection.