Draft released for community review in January 2024

Our Core Values represent the deeply held ethics and beliefs of Mountain Sentinels and our partners.  They serve as the foundation from which our principles and practices arise.

Our collective purpose is to sustain current and future lifeways  of all our relations (plant, animal, water, air, land, and ancestors), in mountain communities. We start by acknowledging that science is based on traditions of rigorous observation practiced by Indigenous and local ancestors, informed by our natural relations for generations. We seek to address past and current appropriation and disruption of place-based knowledges and wisdoms, and to build new pathways guided by diverse ways of knowing and practices of reciprocity. 

We VALUE:

RESPECT for people, place and process, including responsibilities toward our natural relations (plant, animal, water, air, land, and ancestors), as well as respecting our diverse ways of knowing, communicating with respect and transparency, honoring protocols for consent, and through supporting local governance and engagement prior to and throughout every stage of our work.

CENTERING COMMUNITIES by taking guidance from the perspectives of local and Indigenous mountain communities and the needs of our natural relations, and through supporting and investing in community partnerships at all levels of governance to support self-determined decision making.

The WISDOM of LOCAL and INDIGENOUS WORLDVIEWS, including knowledges, cultural lifeways, and practices, by caring for all our relations in all that we do, and by including the voice and life of the mountains.   

EQUITY through disrupting and transforming existing power dynamics to create and strengthen pathways for communication, dialogue, co-development of research, exchange of ideas, and collective power to make change that serves community needs. 

The OPEN SHARING of different knowledges, perspectives, ideas, resources, and capacities. 

BUILDING TRUST and RELATIONSHIPS through understanding guidance which can govern these processes, and honoring the time and actions necessary for building trust and relationships among our communities.

RECIPROCITY and MUTUALISM through generosity, mutual benefit, self-reflection, relationship and partnership building, collective action, just compensation, and investing in systems that sustain the well-being of all our relations. 

PATIENCE and FLEXIBILITY, “flowing where the river takes us,” being open to new perspectives, and supporting processes that allow us to engage all our voices in our collective development, while also supporting each other during challenging times.

HUMILITY, through open listening, open-mindedness, curiosity, holding gratitude for all our different abilities, and being comfortable being uncomfortable as we grow and learn.

INTERGENERATIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY through sustainable practices, repairing our communities and all our relations through engaging elders and youth, education, responsible decision-making, and by being good relatives and future ancestors.