Beyond Borders, Into Belonging
The buffalo do not recognize borders.
They do not ask permission to cross fences built by empires, or to follow the waterways that predate every map ever drawn on this continent. They move as the land moves, by memory, by relationship, by belonging to something larger than any one nation or jurisdiction. That is the spirit that gathered advocates, knowledge keepers, scientists, tribal leaders, policy visionaries, youth, and relatives from across Turtle Island in San Antonio, TX for Buffalo Beyond Borders 2026: dedicated to the restoration of our collective relative, Buffalo, Iyane'e, Iinnii, Tatanka. A gathering designed not as a conference, but as a ceremony.
For a week on Coahuiltecan and Lipan Apache territory, we came home to the herd. In a time shaped by walls and division, this work is relational, radical, transformational.
Texas Tribal Buffalo Project’s Rematriated Ranch, Floresville, TX
Photo by Leila Saidane
A gathering built on Relationship
Rather than centering presentations and reports, BBB 2026 was built around facilitated engagement, deepened relationship, and collective co-creation.
The week opened with Danza Azteca/Mexica, an elder's prayer, and art as shared language: through collage, sculpture, music, poetry, and spoken word. Together, these expressions helped shape a shared vision that carried throughout the gathering.
Lightning rounds on Day 2 let participants share the work they are bringing to the world: internship programs, corridor campaigns, rights of buffalo legal frameworks, rematriation efforts from northern Canada to Cuatro Ciénegas, Mexico. Two vision panels followed, covering policy pathways and rematriation case studies, and closed with small group visioning around the shared priorities that could draw the whole movement together.
Photos by Vanessa Velazquez
Out on the Land
Wednesday was the heart of the gathering. We traveled to the Texas Tribal Buffalo Project's 150-acre rematriated ranch in Floresville for a Buffalo Harvest, with meat donated to the Meat for Mamas Program in collaboration with San Antonio Health Equity Network. Three Tipi Talks anchored the afternoon, centering matriarchal leadership, cross-border buffalo projects, and personal testimony on identity and this work.
Being in the presence of buffalo on rematriated land does something internally and externally. The strategy sharpens. The "why" becomes immediate. We stood on land that was fought for, and understood more clearly what we are fighting for.
Ervin Carlson and Cristina Mormorunni, Co-founders of INDIGENOUS LED
Texas Tribal Buffalo Project’s Rematriated Ranch, Floresville, TX
Photo by Leila Saidane
Building the Campaign and Closing in Ceremony
Thursday brought action planning, a narrative spectrogram exercise testing language across colonial and Indigenized frames, and a Corridor Campaign Planning Exercise asking regional groups what it would take to move millions more buffalo onto viable habitat. Working groups developed plans in science, narrative, and policy and shared back with the full group.
What We Carry Forward
Three streams of work deepen from here. Science braids Indigenous knowledge with Western research to build the evidence base for restoration. Policy advances rights of buffalo frameworks, federal classification, and continental treaty pathways. Narrative shifts around three pillars: Relatives, Not Commodities; Healing Land and People; and Proof of Indigenous Solutions.
To Lucille Contreras and the Texas Tribal Buffalo Project, our facilitators, every elder, and every person who showed up and stayed: you are the herd.
As the buffalo return, the land remembers. And so do we. Together. United. Healed.
Buffalo Beyond Borders 2026 Facilitation Team, San Antonio Riverwalk
Photo by Vanessa Velazquez
Naletzām. With gratitude.
Buffalo Beyond Borders is a project of INDIGENOUS LED. Learn more: indigenousled.org/buffalobeyondborders
