Initiative
Practitioners Gathering
Convening the ecosystem of practitioners
What It Was and Why
Held as a multi-day in-person convening in October 2025, Center for Ethical Land Transition hosted a Practitioners Gathering, bringing together land justice practitioners across regions, roles, and lineages. The gathering created a deeply relational space for practitioners to slow down, share hard-won lessons, metabolize challenges, and reflect on the ongoing learning this work requires. It was designed as a resourced container for connection and cross-pollination, supporting practitioners in remembering that land justice work is carried collectively.
What Emerged from Gathering
Conversations explored practice at the intersection of law, care, and responsibility, including what it means to be a supportive practitioner, how real estate agency can be practiced with integrity, and how legal and governance structures can be shaped beyond mainstream approaches. Practitioners reflected on the importance of integrity and personal responsibility when working within existing systems, naming humility, relational accountability, and imagination as essential alongside technical skill.
The Gathering also held space for honest reflection on power, protection, and the movement of resources within today’s landscape. Participants examined how race, risk, and capital shape collaboration and decision-making, emphasizing the need for transparency, trust, courage, and shared responsibility in multiracial collaboration and collective stewardship. Across these conversations, practitioners named a deep need for ongoing peer support, long-term accompaniment, and aftercare for communities, landholders, and practitioners alike. There was a strong call to normalize complexity, recognizing that ethical land transitions are rarely linear and that struggle signals depth of engagement rather than failure.
What Is on the Horizon
The Practitioners Gathering affirmed our commitment to relational field-building that centers care, accountability, and shared learning. As this work continues, we remain committed to cultivating spaces that nourish resilience, wisdom, and collective capacity for land justice over the long arc of time, ensuring that practitioners are supported as whole people while accompanying Land and community through complex and meaningful transitions.
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Graphic Recording of the gathering by Mari Shibuya