Preservation and education: A Diné woman starts her journey
Driving through the Navajo Nation there are scenes of sagebrush and rust-colored sand that seem to go on forever. The infinite landscape is occasionally interrupted by grazing livestock. Those wide swaths of land are considered rangeland but many motorists may not know what goes into preserving that land.
That’s where Erin Thomas (Diné) comes in. Thomas is the owner of White Shell Consultants, a consulting firm that provides conservation-based range inventory and planning services.
While she is still in the start up phase of her business, Thomas hopes to provide services to leaders and communities on the Navajo Nation that focus on education, training, and outreach. She also hopes to garner federal government contracts.
Photography by Deidra Peaches
“If you were to ask the average person what rangeland is or about natural resources, they probably really don’t have a clear idea,” she said. “So, there’s a need to be able to manage that because that’s what most of the land base is on the Navajo Nation specifically, but also what most of the land base is across the United States. As we deal with climate change and protecting and preserving those spaces, it’s going to be super important (that people are educated).”
Thomas has a background in rangeland management and ecology along with more than a decade of experience with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service where she acted as a Rangeland Management specialist.
While she really enjoyed her time with the USDA, Thomas wanted to bring her knowledge and education back to the Navajo people.
“From where I stand, I can see what the needs are of my people,” she said, adding that addressing those needs are her priority.
Photography by Deidra Peaches
So far she’s faced many struggles, such as establishing a physical address on the Navajo Nation. It took Thomas about three years to successfully obtain a physical address necessary for government work.
Because the Navajo Nation is rural, the majority of roads and homes are not yet labeled. Establishing a physical address takes patience and time and is a hurdle that most entrepreneurs operating on the Navajo Nation face. While Thomas successfully jumped that hurdle, she faces many more in order to keep her business on the reservation. Her biggest challenge to date: figuring out what she needed to do to start securing contracts.
“Prior to Spring of 2021, I had started the business, I had formed an LLC but I wasn’t sure what to do next,” she said. “I’m not producing products. I’m providing services, so I didn’t know where to go from there.”
When Thomas was accepted to Change Labs’ business incubator, a program specifically designed for entrepreneurs operating on Native land, all the pieces started coming together. She learned about accounting and branding but also gained the confidence she needed to take on her business full time and leave the USDA.
Thomas plans to have her business in full swing by the end of summer 2022, and aims to create a training curriculum on grazing management in both Navajo and English. It’s just the type of touch she thinks is needed to seed the Navajo Nation’s response to climate change and to preserve the land for generations to come.