Hindmarsh Island – Australia
According to southern Australian Aboriginal clans, the Dreamtime figure of Ngurunderi chased a giant cod with spear in hand through freshwater marshes, carving the Murray River around Kumarangk.
Lands of the Sami – Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden
Long before the concept of national borders existed, the Sami people of arctic Europe inhabited the regions now known as Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Russian Kola Peninsula.
Mount Athos – Greece
Lying on a slim finger of land stretching south from the Greek mainland, Mount Athos is a religious center maintained by Orthodox Christian monks for over 1,000 years and one of the only UNESCO World Heritage sites in Europe recognized for both its cultural and natural significance.
Amazay Lake – Canada
The Tse Keh Nay, the “people of the Mountains,” have lived for generations in the Rocky and Omineca mountain ranges in north-central British Columbia. Within these mountains are freshwater rivers and lakes, which provide the Tse Keh Nay with the fish that are a major component of their diet.
Tahéjöc and the Comcáac Territory – Mexico
The Comcáac, meaning “the people” in their native tongue—more commonly known as the Seri—are a small indigenous community living on the northwest coast of Mexico along the Gulf of California (Sea of Cortés), a desert land of stark beauty.
Bijagós Archipelago – Guinea-Bissau
The cluster of islands off the coast of the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau—the Bijagós archipelago—are a semitropical land with abundant flora, fauna and natural resources. Despite centuries of slave trading and colonial oppression, the ethnic Bijagós people have remained fiercely independent
Caguana – Puerto Rico
Sitting in the lush central mountain range of Puerto Rico (Borike), the ancestral home of the Boriken Taíno people, Caguana is the largest and most complex ceremonial site in the West Indies. Caguana Ceremonial Center consists of a large central plaza, a ceremonial dance area, 10 rectangular earth-and-stone–lined ball courts and plazas and one circular plaza
Badger-Two Medicine – United States
The Badger-Two Medicine Roadless Area sits on National Forest land within the Rocky Mountain Front. Adjacent to the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, Badger-Two Medicine is a dramatic landscape where the plains, the mountains, and two rivers meet.
Wao Kele O Puna – United States
On the island of Hawaii, the remote rainforest Wao Kele on the slopes of Kilauea is the home of the volcano goddess Pele and her ʻohana (family) of deities, an ancient hunting ground that continues to be a place of ceremony for Native Hawaiians today.
Cave Rock – United States
The remnant of an ancient volcano, Cave Rock is home to the spirits of the Washoe people, whose ancestral land encompassed the Lake Tahoe Basin. They no longer have domain over their sacred place; instead it is managed by the Forest Service, which permits recreational use in violation of Washoe beliefs.