Honoring Mother Earth and the Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) culture, Nimiipuu Protecting the Environment safeguards their sacred lands, waters, and 1855 treaty rights. The nonprofit was founded in 2015 to successfully oppose Exxon’s “megaloads” (380-foot industrial convoys weighing nearly a million pounds) passing through tribal lands and threatening fragile ecosystems. Guided by Indigenous knowledge, the group works to protect clean water, restore endangered species, oppose development projects that threaten treaty-protected resources and improve food security in an area where the per capita income is two-thirds that of the national average. Through cultural education, they reconnect youth with traditional practices like canoe building while addressing urgent concerns, including wolf, grizzly, and bison conservation, dam removal on the Snake River, and destructive mining and grazing practices. Connecting youth with their heritage, NPE is preparing the next generation of leaders to navigate modern challenges while remaining rooted in ancestral wisdom.
Free the Snake River –“Our Duty is to speak for the salmon, on their behalf. What happens to the salmon, happens to us.”
Headquartered in Pullman, WA, NPE serves primarily Indigenous and low-income communities across the Nez Perce reservation and throughout the Pacific Northwest. The Indigenous and women-led nonprofit operates with five part-time staff members and a growing group of volunteers, many from nearby universities. NPE’s efforts include challenging the Stibnite Gold Mine, advocating for wolf conservation, supporting grizzly bear recovery, working to breach the lower Snake River dams, and restoring buffalo to tribal lands. They provide after-school programs at Lapwai Elementary School where they teach traditional arts such as canoe carving and beadwork, alongside sustainable gardening. NPE also brings together Indigenous nations through their regional Tribal Environmental Summits to address shared concerns. Their approach combines traditional ecological knowledge with modern advocacy methods to protect tribal resources, with a focus on preserving traditional foods, sacred sites, and maintaining the health of land, water, wildlife, and people throughout their ancestral territories.
At Lapwai Elementary School, tribal and non-tribal students meet after school each Wednesday to learn about the Nimiipuu culture. Here, they learn to carve a traditional canoe from a yellow fir log, like the ones the Nimiipuu used on the Snake River over 100 years ago, before the river was dammed and access limited to traditional foods like Chinook salmon. Photo: Nimiipuu Protecting the Environment