Protecting the environment often draws on a collaboration between community members, non-government organizations, academia, and, local, state and federal agencies. Indigenous nations however, are often invited to participate in an initiative after it has already begun to take shape. Indigenous partners are most likely to remain engaged in multi-actor collaborations when they are viewed as equal partners, when non-Indigenous actors have taken the time to understand their relationship to the environment and how they view the world, according to a Dartmouth-led study recently published in AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples.