Photo courtesy of the Chesapeake Conservancy

Chief Anne Richardson, Chief of the Rappahannock Tribe (Indian Neck, Virginia). An Indigenous water leader, Anne spearheaded the Rappahannock Tribe’s impactful “Return to the River” initiative, which reclaims ancestral homelands after 350 years of dispossession. Today, Tribal youth learn fishing traditions and river ecology on their own ancestral shoreline. The program, by her design, combines traditional knowledge with restoration principles. Under her leadership, the Rappahannock Tribe is advancing oyster restoration, shoreline protection, and water quality improvements within the Chesapeake Bay watershed and ensuring ancestral knowledge for the next generation.