Seattle-based environmental nonprofit Nia Tero is facing increased pressure amid months-long efforts by visual storytellers for the return of photos, video and other visual works that include their image or likeness. The Global Indigenous Alliance, which is composed of over two dozen members, most of them Indigenous, launched a public social media campaign urging action earlier this week.
“Return our identity,” states one of the 15 posts the GIA has put up so far. “We ask that Nia Tero return our materials, and send a letter to all fellows, creatives, artists and grantees offering copyright of their works.”
The post notes the request is per the UN’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples , which protects the sovereignty of their Intellectual Property.
The request for return of visual IP includes materials produced in partnership and under contract with Nia Tero through their now-defunct Storytelling division.
The division, which was headed by renowned Pacific Northwest community leader Tracy Rector, was dissolved in March 2024 , and Rector’s position as the head of the division along with it.
According to numerous sources familiar with the situation who spoke with McClatchy on and off the record, there was little to no warning or discussion about the change, which has had a massive knock-on impact for many affiliated Indigenous and non-Native storytellers.
One of them is Stina Hamlin , a post-production supervisor and podcast producer in New York City who worked with Nia Tero for over two years on a contract basis.
“I immediately resigned,” Hamlin said in a video interview on June 28. “I did leave, because it was like, ‘Now I can’t associate with you.’”
Hamlin said she’s known and worked with Rector since 2016.
“She brought me into the Storytelling team,” Hamlin said, noting that Rector’s sterling reputation as an effective leader in visual storytelling with Indigenous communities precedes her. “She’s a matriarch. She speaks truth to power. She’s a pillar in the documentary community.”
During numerous interviews by McClatchy over several months, similar sentiments about Rector’s leadership skills and critical role in Nia Tero’s Storytelling division have been mentioned many times.
“People thought she ran Nia Tero,” Hamlin noted. “All of us were there because of Tracy.”
In fact, in addition to other individual resignations like Hamlin’s, organized opposition arose.
“GIA formed as as direct response to Tracy being removed,” Hamlin said.
Rector, who responded via text message late Friday, said she was not involved in GIA’s formation.
“I am honored and surprised by the formation of GIA in support of the amazing global Indigenous Storytelling work accomplished and amplified during my nearly five-year tenure at Nia Tero,” Rector stated. “It takes a community to make change!”
In addition to calling for accountability and bias training, the GIA has also maintained that Nia Tero’s dissolution of the Storytelling division, and Rector’s abrupt dismissal, represents a breach of trust.
According to Hamlin, though, the odds are stacked against GIA and their quest to retain control over their visual IP.
“It feels like this Goliath,” she said. “This behemoth of money and power.”
Without a trusted leader at the helm handling Indigenous-led storytelling within the organization, it has become complicated for some. There are those who can’t walk away because of financial considerations and existing contractual obligations.
McClatchy has spoken with some of them, and has seen the original letter sent from GIA earlier this year to Nia Tero’s board, which had over two dozen signatories.
“If this many people are speaking out - you’re not listening or trying,” Hamlin said of Nia Tero’s reaction to the complaints.
Complex controversy
Nia Tero responded on Friday by downplaying any perceptions of controversy.
“We have had four individuals respond to our outreach requesting that their name and likeness be removed from Nia Tero materials,” read an emailed statement in response to a request for comment. “We are working with our partners to honor those asks and would of course do the same for anyone else who felt the same way.”
The nonprofit also says they have received a “handful of emails” from “groups purporting to speak on behalf of individuals who have been engaged with our programs.” They go on to say they’ve reached out to people individually.
“Many of those who responded also requested that we continue to use their materials and that they would like to continue working with us in the future.”
The statement from Nia Tero also said that under their “policy on intellectual property, all fellows and grantees hold the rights to any intellectual property created during the grant.”
However, a copy of a standard Nia Tero photo and audio/video release form obtained by McClatchy from January 2024 clearly states that “Nia Tero will own all property rights, including intellectual property rights, in the material including My Likeness.”
According to Nia Tero, in 2023 when Tracy Rector was still leading the Storytelling division, they funded $24 million in grants to 128 organizations.
Disappointing outcomes
Victoria Cheyenne, an Indigenous Bolivian-American documentary filmmaker, said Nia Tero contracted her in February 2023 after attending the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival that the organization sponsored. Cheyenne served as the outreach coordinator for the organization’s Kin Theory team, a global community of Indigenous media makers that supports the telling and sharing of their own stories.
During her time as the outreach coordinator, Cheyenne said she was tasked with attending film festivals and recruiting Indigenous filmmakers to join Nia Tero’s database, which was intended to be a tool for them.
“I was passionate about the work done in Kin Theory,” Cheyenne said. “However, when I look back on it, it’s disheartening because my job was being directly in the field with Indigenous filmmakers who put trust into me to share them on this platform, which meant that I was representing this nonprofit that they put trust into and Nia Tero has consistently betrayed that trust by Indigenous peoples.”
Cheyenne worked as the outreach coordinator until January of this year and has since become a 4th World Media Lab Fellow , a program that was started by Tracy Rector. It is supported by three different film festivals and partially funded by Nia Tero.
Cheyenne, who is part of the GIA, said she and other 4th World Fellows have requested to have their names and information removed from the Nia Tero website, but Nia Tero has not complied with their request.
“They did reach out and respond to the forefront fellows individually, not as a collective, to ask us if that was what we wanted, but otherwise, we have not received group communication from Nia Tero,” Cheyenne said. “They’ve made zero public statements and they have been keeping people in the dark about their moves in regard to what’s happening with the Storytelling program.”
McClatchy scoured social media and the Internet for any related public statements by Nia Tero, but found none.
‘Reasonable direct steps’
Cheyenne stressed the importance of understanding that Nia Tero is not an Indigenous organization because it was not created and is not led by Indigenous people. She added that it has always prioritized its own benefits and has not provided Indigenous peoples with positionality and power to make actual decisions and lead.
Nia Tero continues to use images of Indigenous people and their work to maintain an image that Indigenous people condone and stand with Nia Tero, but that is not true, Cheyenne said.
“Nia Tero continues to use Indigenous faces Indigenous art and Indigenous work to represent themselves when the artists who originally agreed to let that work exist on the websites did so under the trust of Tracy Rector and the existing storytelling team,” Cheyenne said. “Without those things in place, and with an understanding of a lot of the deep problems in this white male-founded and led nonprofit, now the Indigenous Alliance, we aren’t interested in our work representing the Nia Tero any longer.”
Cheyenne said that despite Nia Tero’s refusal to make a public statement, or acknowledge the Indigenous storyteller’s letter or have an open dialogue with them, they refuse to give up.
“We offered reasonable direct steps and direct actions that Nia Tero can take, “Cheyenne said. “We’ve asked them to come to the table and they refuse. So we will continue to use our voices loudly. We’re going to continue to step up and speak out and they won’t separate us as individuals even if they won’t acknowledge us as a collective. We will make them acknowledge us as a collective by continuing to publicly use our voices and using social media using whatever platforms we can to convey the message of what’s actually happening at Nia Tero.”
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