How can the stories of our connection to place help us bridge gaps? How can land provide us a canvas for healing and justice? How can we rebuild and redefine the conservation space to be more relationship based and less transactional? How do we talk about conservation without saying conservation? The Montezuma Land Conservancy (MLC) has been expanding innovative community conservation programs in Southwest Colorado and deepening its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion for the past four years. Recently this work has grown into a budding relationship with the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe with the hiring of our first ever Cross-Cultural Programs Manager, Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk. As a previous Tribal Councilwoman and former co-chair of the Bear’s Ears Intertribal Coalition, Regina has brought a wealth of experience and perspective to the land trust and helped to advance this necessary work. This process has connected MLC to community members, elders, and Tribal departments to focus reconciliation and trust building through cross-cultural program development and exploration of our shared connections to land. The lessons and challenges have extended beyond just working with the Tribe and have helped MLC broaden its perspective on conservation and organizational development. Join Regina, MLC's executive director, Travis Custer, and Olga Gonzalez, long-time non-profit leader and equity consultant for this interactive session. During this session we’ll share how these lessons have helped to influence the organization's leadership, culture, and conservation planning and discuss how we can challenge ourselves to think differently about how we define conservation work and build equity into our organizations.