Lane County Queer Birders respectfully acknowledges that we gather and bird on Kalapuya īlihi, the ancestral and traditional homelands of the Kalapuya people. For countless generations, the Kalapuya were careful stewards of the prairies, rivers, forests, and wetlands that continue to sustain life in what is now called Eugene, Oregon.

Today, Kalapuya descendants are part of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians. We also recognize the enduring presence and sovereignty of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and the Chelamela people, whose relationships to this land persist despite attempted erasure through colonization, displacement, and violence.

Lane County Queer Birders is a free, volunteer-run community group organized without compensation or profit. While our capacity is limited by design, our responsibility to this land and to Indigenous peoples is not. We understand that land, identity, survival, and resistance are deeply intertwined—and that acknowledgment without action is incomplete.

In that spirit, we commit to the following practices:

We commit to redistribution within our capacity, by sharing opportunities for mutual aid, community fundraisers, and Indigenous-led environmental and cultural efforts, and by encouraging direct support whenever possible.

We commit to ongoing learning and accountability, by educating ourselves about the histories and present-day realities of the Kalapuya and other local Tribes, centering Indigenous voices in our learning, and remaining open to correction.

We commit to ethical birding and land care, by modeling practices that protect habitats, respect wildlife, and honor Indigenous environmental knowledge as living, place-based science.

We commit to non-performative solidarity, by rejecting symbolic gestures that replace material care, and by being honest about the limits and responsibilities of a volunteer-run group.

We commit to building safer outdoor space, by fostering birding environments that actively resist racism, colonial norms, and cisheteropatriarchy, and prioritize the dignity and safety of Indigenous, Two-Spirit, neurodiverse, and LGBTQIA+ participants.

We offer this acknowledgment and these commitments with gratitude for the land that holds us, and with an ongoing responsibility to act with care, humility, and intention—for the communities of the past, present, and future who call this place home.