Ekvn-Yefolecv, which means “returning to the Earth, returning to our homelands,” is an intentional Maskoke ecovillage located on ancestral homelands in southern Alabama. Designed as a holistic, decolonial model of sustainable living, the work of Ekvn-Yefolecv includes language and cultural revitalization, regenerative agriculture, and development of buildings and systems that integrate traditional Maskoke ecological knowledge, regenerative principles and science. Ekvn-Yefolecv serves as a replicable model and supports other Indigenous communities in manifesting similar initiatives.
In the fight against the climate crisis, philanthropy must fund more projects led by frontline communities and Indigenous land stewards. Currently, Native American communities receive just 0.4 per cent of philanthropic funds from large U.S. foundations, and supporting Indigenous ecosystem restoration remains only a subsection of philanthropic climate funding.
The organization Ekvn-Yefolecv [ee-gun yee-full-lee-juh, a double entendre meaning Returning to the Earth/Returning to Our Homelands] is a Maskoke collective committed to embracing the role of protecting and reviving traditional relationships to the earth while revitalizing language and culture.
Nearly two centuries after many of their ancestors were displaced from their native homelands in the southern United States, a group of Native Americans is preserving their language and traditions in a unique community in Alabama.
“Intentional communities” are on the rise in the United States as more and more people see the value in stepping outside of consumption-heavy American life. One such community, situated on 577 acres of Alabama woods, however, has a higher intention: Building an ecovillage where their endangered language—Maskoke—can thrive in a way it can’t in modern settings, spurring a return to many parts of their ancestors’ pre-colonial way of life.