Dune Lankard

Dune Lankard, an Eyak Athabaskan leader and founder of Native Conservancy, has renewed Indigenous food traditions of harvesting, processing and sharing nourishment with Native elders. His work advances kelp and seaweed farming opportunities, intergenerational knowledge, and regenerative systems that serve to heal both people and place. His community-driven approach reconnects Alaska Native families with ancestral foodways and inspires the next generation to uphold their role as guardians of land and sea.

The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill marked a turning point in Lankard’s life. Having grown up fishing salmon and herring in Cordova, he became a preservationist devoted to protecting not only the land, trees and waters, but also the Native cultures sustained by them. His conviction that healing the land and sea cannot be separated from healing the people who tend them became the foundation for Native Conservancy. Today, it stands as a model for integrating conservation, economic opportunity and food sovereignty.

Through Native Conservancy, Lankard advances Indigenous-led mariculture through local stewardship that is building regenerative ocean farms to restore ecosystems and sustain communities. The organization’s cornerstone initiatives — Native Sea Trust, Community Kelp Seed Nursery and Native Kelp Cooperative — put this approach into action. The Native Sea Trust secures long-term access to ocean farming sites and allows local farmers to grow kelp species for food, restoration and regenerative uses for generations to come. The Community Kelp Seed Nursery restores seed access and enables Native farmers to lead regenerative ocean farming through place-based innovation and stewardship. The Native Kelp Cooperative, a farmer-owned model incubated by Native Conservancy, strives to ensure Indigenous control over production, processing and profits to keep value in Indigenous hands, protect sovereignty and prevent corporate consolidation before it begins. Together, these efforts strengthen marine ecosystems, revitalize traditional food practices and build abundance for future generations.

Under Lankard’s leadership, Native Conservancy has become a model for integrating conservation, economic opportunity and food sovereignty. His community-anchored approach empowers Indigenous communities to steward their own resources, share traditional foods and carry forward ecological knowledge. Through this justice-driven vision, he uplifts Native voices, strengthens access to nourishing foods and helps shape a regenerative future for Alaska’s coastal communities — for generations yet to come. Learn more at NativeConservancy.org.