Jim Enote2021We are thrilled to recognize Jim Enote, who has served Native American communities for decades, as the third and final Conservation Leadership Award (CLA) honoree for 2021. Enote is a Zuni tribal member and the CEO of the Colorado Plateau Foundation (CPF), which works with tribes across the Colorado Plateau, stretching over and beyond the Four Corners region of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. Currently, the foundation prioritizes efforts to protect water, sacred places, and languages, and ensure food security. Enote said the Conservation Leadership Award was a celebration not of his own work but of the work of many who came before him, including bold Native leaders and non-Native advocates for justice and equity in the conservation field. He noted that in 1962, he encountered a whites-only restroom as a boy, which motivated him to change the asymmetries of power in the world. Today, he and his capable and serious staff, along with tribes and tribal organizations, are growing Indigenous leadership in various ways across the Southwest. He said that would be impossible without the work of countless others who came before to make inroads in conservation, politics, philanthropy, and other fields. A board chair with Grand Canyon Trust, Governing Council member of the Wilderness Society, and board member of the Trust for Mutual Understanding, Enote has also served UNESCO, the U.S. National Park Service, National Geographic Society, and numerous other organizations. At CPF, he leads a majority-Native staff. "You can read books about how to lead, but CPF has a different way of managing our work. I follow what I've learned from the natural world around me, to work with nature as a team. As seeds are to soil and the way ducks understand a river's flow.” —Jim Enote CPF's slogan is we live where we serve, reinforcing CPF's unique understanding of Native communities' economic, cultural, social, and political perspectives on the Colorado Plateau. Grantees are not far-off entities but neighbors. The CLA comes with a cash award for both the individual winner and the organization they represent. Since its inception, Wilburforce has recognized nearly 100 leaders with the CLA. All bios are from the year the award was presented.