Growing Roots: An Indigenous-Led Review of the Canadian Land Trust Standards & Practices
The Canadian Land Trust Standards & Practices (S&Ps) — the voluntary standards that guide land trusts across the country — were developed without formal Indigenous governance or oversight. The 2019 Standards named this gap and called for an Indigenous review. Growing Roots is how the Centre for Land Conservation (CLC) is carrying that commitment forward.
This work starts from a simple premise: an Indigenous review should not just ask how Indigenous perspectives can be layered onto an existing system. It opens space for deeper questions — about Indigenous rights and responsibilities, laws and legal orders, governance and accountability, relationships to land and water, and the different ways conservation itself can be understood.
Since 2025, CLC has been listening and learning alongside Indigenous leaders working across conservation, resource management, standards and certification, law, and public policy. Those conversations have shaped three research streams: Emerging Roots, looking at how land trusts currently approach Indigenous relations and reconciliation; Pollinating Seedlings, drawing lessons from Indigenous accountability frameworks in other sectors; and Growing Gardens, learning from Nations and land trusts already building new relationships and governance models together. Together, these streams offer a starting point — not a predetermined destination.
Growing Roots Collaborative Committee
The Growing Roots Collaborative Research Committee is a primarily Indigenous group (selected through public nominations) convened by the Centre for Land Conservation. It is not a Board committee and doesn’t represent all Indigenous Peoples; each member contributes from their own knowledge and relationships.
They review what CLC’s three research streams are finding (Emerging Roots, Pollinating Seedlings, and Growing Gardens), challenge assumptions, flag gaps and open questions, and help shape recommendations on the relationships, governance, accountability and processes that should guide the next stage of an Indigenous-led review of the Canadian Land Trust Standards & Practices.
Dan Benoit
Dan Benoit is a citizen of the MMF and is a Red River Métis, whose nation is historically centred in the Northern Prairies of Canada and the United States. He has spent his life living within the Red River Métis homeland in the communities of St. Norbert, Lac du Bonnet and St Laurent, Manitoba. Dan is both a Métis traditional knowledge holder and western trained ecologist/ environmental scientist having 10 years post-secondary education in Natural Resources Management and Ecology from University College of the North, Red River College Polytechnic, University of Ottawa, and the University of Manitoba. Dan has held a number of positions in Indigenous (MMF), Provincial and Federal governments over 30 years, most recently serving as Director of the Knowledge Circle for Indigenous Inclusion within Indigenous Services Canada (now retired). Dan’s career has focused on Indigenous issues and working with communities on Indigenous rights recognition, community and natural resources development including species at risk, climate change and nature-based solutions, as well as mining, forestry and agricultural industries, Indigenous traditional food and green energy systems. Dan has extensive senior experience in advisory services, policy and program development as well as serving as a practitioner and regulator in many of the areas listed. Dan has been on several boards including: Verimark, The Copper Mark, Canada’s Species at Risk Act COSEWIC Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge Subcommittee, the Mining Association of Canada’s TSM Community of Interest Panel, and as the Red River Métis representative to the Canadian Delegation at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity to name a few.
Dan Benoit is extremely knowledgeable regarding the intersection of Indigenous resource and harvesting rights and the need to have both access to and a healthy environment so that Indigenous people can exercise their s35 rights. As such there are unique opportunities for both Indigenous peoples and landowners to work together on these goals of land conservation and the equitable sharing of the fruits of those conservation lands.
Kathryn Benoit
Kathryn Benoit is a Red River Métis, who has grown up on her ancestor’s traditional homeland in the Red River Country. Like many Métis, Kathryn has been raised in the traditions and culture of the Red River Métis including our special relationship and stewardship with the land and water. As a Red River Métis student pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Agribusiness, Kathryn has expanded her lived experiences beyond this traditional Red River Métis agricultural lifestyle to include the study of broader agricultural commercial systems, markets, and policies shaping both local, Northern, and Indigenous communities as well as the broader agriculture and food industry. Kathryn’s lived experiences have strengthened her interest in Indigenous community food issues, such as food sovereignty, security, sustainability, and equitable access, while also deepening her commitment to supporting a resilient, innovative agricultural and food sector as part of a broader Canadian Reconciliation agenda. Outside of school hours, Kathryn works for the CN Railway as a student. Previously, she worked for the Governments of Canada, Manitoba, and the Manitoba Métis Federation.
Nancy Kinoshameg
Nancy has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Carleton University and a Certificate in Law from Queen’s University. She has taken Cultural Competencies and Trauma Informed Learning from York University. She has over 20 years of experience working with federal and municipal governments and her own First Nations Band. Nancy has worked in the areas of governance, economic development, Indigenous labour market, as well as lands and natural resources, health, and agriculture. Her analytical and leadership skills have been recognized by receiving the Deputy Ministers Award of Excellence for program design and implementation team award. She relaxes by golfing or fishing with her partner Mike. She is a proud mother to Evangelista and grandmother to Easton, Rosalee, and Reed, and enjoys spending time with the children, grandchildren and great granddaughter of her partner
Karenna Williams
Karenna Williams is turtle clan Kanyen’kehá:ka (Mohawk) from Six Nations of the Grand River territory. She now lives in Vancouver where she practices Aboriginal law at Huberman Law Group. Karenna is adjunct faculty at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Law, co-chair of the University of Victoria Environmental Law Centre Board, and a board member of West Coast Environmental Law. She is very grateful to learn about environmental law and stewardship principles in action from many good minds. Karenna is committed to learning and living the Kayaneren’kó:wa, or Great Law of Peace of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and is thankful to work together with the Growing Roots committee to continue to support the natural world.
Darran O’Leary
Darran O’Leary is the Land Manager with the Passamaquoddy Recognition Group, where he has spent the past eight years focused on land conservation and stewardship through Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) and other private land conservation tools. He is also committed to relationship building and bridging gaps with other Indigenous Nations, governments, and environmental organizations by working closely with Elders, Knowledge Keepers, biologists, naturalists, and youth. Darran is a proud father of two and a longtime coach of softball and hockey. Prior to working for his Nation, he held a variety of roles in sales, manufacturing, real estate, management, and business development in both Canada and the United States. Darran sit as a member at large on the board of directors for the Association of Canadian Land Trusts (ACLT)
Tara Shea
Tara is passionate about responsible practices and has several years’ experience working with mining companies, Indigenous organizations and others on the development and implementation of the mining sector’s Towards Sustainable Mining program.
Recognizing the important contribution that the land trust sector makes to conserving biodiversity, Tara joined CLC’s Board of Directors to apply her experience implementing an assurance process for responsible mining standards, to the development of a performance assurance program for the Canadian Land Trust Standards and Practices.
Growing Roots Project Team
Kim Neale – Growing Roots Project Coordinator
Kim Neale has worked closely with the Centre for Land Conservation’s Executive Director and Board since 2025 to help shape and guide Growing Roots, an Indigenous-led review of the Canadian Land Trust Standards & Practices. Through relationships with Indigenous leaders, land trust practitioners, and standards experts, she helped develop the research agenda and establish the initiative’s collaborative, relationship-based approach.
As Project Coordinator, Kim provides strategic guidance and coordinates the three research streams alongside the Growing Roots Collaborative Research Committee, research team, CLC Leadership and emerging strategic partners. She also co-leads Pollinating Seedlings, examining how Indigenous accountability frameworks and standards from other sectors can inform a more inclusive and collaborative process for reviewing the Canadian Land Trust Standards & Practices.
Kim is of Anishinaabe and mixed European heritage and holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Environmental Engineering from the University of Guelph, along with professional designations in sustainable finance, insurance, and risk management. Her early career in environmental impact assessment introduced her to technical standards development, ecological economics, and climate risk, eventually leading her into finance and insurance. There, she developed innovative financial and risk-transfer products, including restoration bonds, parametric insurance programs, and community-owned insurance reciprocal models.
In 2020, Kim began a new career chapter focused on reconnecting more deeply with her Indigenous roots and re-examining how her experience in conventional finance could contribute to more regenerative economic systems. This transition was grounded in teachings and guidance received through her relationships with Mnidoo Mnising (Manitoulin Island) and the Anishinaabe leaders, Elders, and youth who care for the world’s largest freshwater island.
Through her subsequent work with WWF-Canada, the Natural Assets Initiative, RAD Network, Future Earth, and the land trust sector, Kim’s work has explored how braiding Indigenous and Western ways of knowing in engineering, economics, and finance can accelerate systems change. She advocates for the transformative potential of Indigenous ingenuity to reshape nature-related markets and support a transition from extractive to regenerative economies. She believes that centering Indigenous rights, knowledge, and governance can strengthen stewardship of lands and waters, reduce environmental and economic risks for all people, and create lasting benefits for the human and more-than-human relations who depend on healthy ecosystems.
Kim is also Director of Biocultural Finance Systems at Salmon Returns, a bioregional finance intermediary working across the Pacific salmon watersheds from California through British Columbia and Yukon to Alaska. She works alongside Indigenous and community leadership to develop community-led financing approaches that support long-term stewardship and regenerative economies.
Kim serves on the Board of Braiding Knowledges Canada, lives in Ottawa, and enjoys spending her free time connecting with community, nature, and music.
Patricia Nash – Growing Roots Researcher
Trish grew up along the Grand River in southern Ontario, the territory of her Haudenosaunee ancestors. She obtained an HBSc in zoology from the University of Guelph and later initiated a Masters degree at the University of Waterloo. Her love for the natural world has taken her across Canada working for Indigenous communities on rights-based conservation. From polar bears to sharks, Trish has worked with communities to protect species inherently linked to their culture and subsistence. Her work on caribou in the Torngat Mountains was recognized by Parks Canada as the best example of conservation and reconciliation in Canada.
More recently, Trish led the establishment of the first Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area in Atlantic Canada, a Wabanaki (trans-national) landscape connectivity initiative, and the first national Indigenous-led Two-Eyed Seeing research hub for natural climate solutions. She guided the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs on the development of the Sespite’tmnej Kmitknu Land Conservancy – one of the first Indigenous land trusts in Canada. She was co-chair of the Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership’s Indigenous Land Trust Circle, and a member of Canada’s Indigenous area-based conservation advisory group under Pathway to Target 1. Trish has a daughter who is a nurse in a First Nation community and a son who is an animator living in Vancouver. She loves spending time with her children, friends, and her blue heeler at her home on the Bras d’Or in Nova Scotia.
Dr. Shaun Stevenson – Growing Roots Researcher
Shaun Stevenson is a faculty member in the University Studies program at Northern Lakes College in Treaty 8 territory, northern Alberta and an Adjunct Research Professor in the School of Canadian Studies at Carleton University. He grew up in southern Ontario and currently resides in Ottawa. Shaun received his PhD from the Department of English Language and Literature at Carleton University and his MA in Cultural Studies and Critical Theory and BA (Hons) in English and Indigenous Studies, from McMaster University. Shaun is a settler scholar whose research focuses on Indigenous land and water rights, law and policy, and settler/Indigenous relations. He previously worked as a Senior Policy Analyst in the Treaties and Aboriginal Government sector for the government of Canada and as a Project Director on a community-based research project with the Tahltan First Nation and the National Core for Neuroethics at UBC Hospital. Shaun has published on the ethics of community-based research, Indigenous water rights, literatures and reconciliation in Qualitative Inquiry, Decolonization, Settler Colonial Studies, Canadian Literature and Theory & Event, among others. In his spare time, he volunteers for Belong Ottawa, a community outreach organization in downtown Ottawa, plays tennis and spends as much time with dogs as he can.
Charlotte Craig – CLC Operations and Research Coordinator and Growing Roots Researcher
Charlotte Craig is a graduate of the University of Toronto Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Masters program, and she has spent her career focusing on the environment and conservation. Charlotte has conducted research in beetle populations in Algonquin Forest and urban bee populations in the GTA, informing science-based conservation strategies. Her experience has led her to have various roles in data analytics, research, project management, and outreach to deliver results on key environmental topics including land conservation, green transportation, and sustainable urban development.
Charlotte loves backcountry camping and hiking through all of Canada’s parks but as an East Coaster Charlotte is the happiest on the East Coast’s diverse beaches ranging from red dirt to rocky shores.
Lara Ellis – CLC Executive Director and Growing Roots Manager
Lara Ellis brings three decades of environmental leadership experience to her work, with deep expertise in advocacy, policy development, community engagement, and strategic partnerships. Working from coast to coast across Canada, she has been involved with protected areas, sustainable forestry, and regenerative agriculture initiatives, collaborating closely with government, corporate, nonprofit partners, and local communities. Her work includes developing innovative environmental programs, building effective partnerships, and advancing policy solutions for climate change and biodiversity protection. Lara holds a Master of Management degree from the McGill-McConnell Program for National Voluntary Sector Leaders.
Lara’s continuing passion for conservation is driven by her commitment to inclusive, landscape-scale solutions that bring together diverse stakeholders and communities. She believes in the transformative power of partnerships and the critical importance of supporting Indigenous-led conservation initiatives. Her love of nature spans all scales – from enjoying her local urban parks to annual backcountry canoe trips and exploring Canada’s majestic mountain landscapes. This personal connection to the land reinforces her dedication to working across Canada with all sectors of society.
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