2025 marks the 10 year anniversary of the Waterfall Unity Alliance. The Alliance was initially formed as a frontline organization in 2015 when traditional Kanien’kehá:ka leaders from the Akwesasne Reserve came to stand with local residents against The Constitution Pipeline, a major fracked gas pipeline slated to cross their ancestral territory in the Mohawk and Schoharie Valleys. The Waterfall Unity Alliance was part of a coalition of grassroots groups that successfully campaigned for New York State to deny the pipeline’s construction permit, setting a historic precedent as the first defeat of a federally approved, interstate mega-pipeline.

​

Standing together against the pipeline also meant standing for each other, and for righting historical wrongs in the ways that we can in this generation.  In 2016, members of the Alliance made a foundational pledge to help open the door to the peaceful return of the Kanien'kehá:ka to their ancestral homelands and work together to protect the forest, waters, farms, wildlife and rural culture of the Valley.  

​

In 2020, the Waterfall Unity Alliance changed from being a loosely organized frontline organization to a registered 501c3 whose official mission was “to protect the Schoharie Valley and all Earth, build alliances across movements & cultures, and help create solutions to the existential challenges of our time". It was a transition from preventing harm to actively restoring and rebuilding ecological and community health for all peoples, in unity and in service to the Earth. 

​

Also in 2020, Roger Kanerahtiio Jock (a founding member of the Waterfall Unity Alliance) began the construction of a traditional Haudenosaunee Longhouse near the waterfall from which the Alliance takes its name. The Longhouse was a symbol the return of the original instructions of the Great Law of Peace and began a profound healing process that culminated in the purchase of Skywoman’s Forever Farm, a 60 acre berry farm in the heart of the Valley, in November 2022. 

​

In 2023 Kawenniiosta Jock, Roger’s daughter, became co-director of the Waterfall Unity Alliance together with Bethany Yarrow. Since then they have worked with an all-female board of directors to complete the rematriation of Skywoman’s Forever Farm and return the land to fully indigenous stewardship and control.

​

The project is deeply informed by the lived experiences of the Akwesasne community, whose lands straddling the New York/Canada border have been severely impacted by industrial pollution. Designated a toxic superfund site, Akwesasne is home to significant PCB contamination originating from corporations like General Motors, Reynolds, and Alcoa.2 This environmental devastation has rendered traditional practices like farming and fishing unsafe, directly impacting community health and basic subsistence. The quest for clean land and water in the Schoharie Valley, which itself holds profound significance as ancestral Kanien'kehá:ka territory, is intrinsically linked to environmental justice, as we seek a healthy environment free from the toxic legacies faced elsewhere.