Root Relationship Contributions Rise to Ten Percent

The Etheridge Foundation is pleased to announce that we have raised our Root Relationship Contributions (RRCs) from a 5% to 10% match of the corresponding research grant.

Our intent is to continue to increase this amount over time as we mindfully grow our organization and resources.

This practice is a formal recognition that traditional medicine knowledge and practices are integral to Western research efforts, and a material expression of solidarity.

We’re grateful for the people and cultures who developed these medicine relationships and for the opportunity to contribute to bicultural conservation projects led by Indigenous peoples.

We invite other research funders to join us in this ongoing practice of acknowledgment and interconnection.

Medicine does not exist in a vacuum.

It is co-created by the efforts, energy, and interactions of many different life forms and systems, including most importantly the traditional biocultures where medicines orginiated.

These incredibly sophisticated and complex biocultural systems are crucial to life, and are stewarded by Indigenous communities worldwide.

However, many of these ecosystems are under severe threat: almost 60 percent of Indigenous territories worldwide are currently at risk due to industrial development.

As the environmental journalist Ocean Malandra writes for the IMC Fund,

“Indigenous-led conservation is the most natural and effective way to protect precious ecosystems and mitigate the global ecological crisis.

It not only safeguards traditional cultures and the territories they have managed for millennia, but it is a way to preserve and strengthen spiritual world views that offer important and resilient alternatives to current conservation and public health models.”

We welcome the opportunity to strengthen our interconnections and to learn from the leadership of Indigenous peoples.