Uploaded June 2025 | Updated September 2026, 10 hours ago
Dune Lankard, President and Founder, Native Conservancy
Ancestrally from and a lifelong resident of Eyak, Alaska, Dune Lankard is an Eyak Athabaskan Native of the Eagle Clan—and a strategic force for several nonprofits. Lankard’s life changed when he found his homelands covered with oil from the Exxon Valdez disaster, and he swiftly went from being a commercial fisherman to a dedicated community activist. In Lankard’s view, not only were the trees and wild salmon endangered, so were the Native cultures that depended on them. He has since helped preserve one million acres of wild salmon habitat along the Gulf of Alaska coastline and is now building regenerative economies through ocean crops of kelp. In his continued leadership linking culture with environmental solutions, Lankard is the president and founder of Native Conservancy, a nonprofit empowering Alaska Native peoples to preserve their ancestral lands and ocean. He has won numerous awards for his life’s chosen work as a social change artist.
The Impact Awards is a new program in 2025, born out of the James Beard Foundation’s impact work and advocacy policy priorities. Built on the previous Leadership Awards that were retired in 2024, the Impact Awards are administered by the Impact Committee of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees and reflect the year’s programmatic priorities. It is one of the Foundation’s three Achievement Awards programs, alongside the Lifetime Achievement and Humanitarian of the Year Awards.
Learn more at jamesbeard.org/awards.
Dune Lankard, President and Founder, Native Conservancy
Ancestrally from and a lifelong resident of Eyak, Alaska, Dune Lankard is an Eyak Athabaskan Native of the Eagle Clan—and a strategic force for several nonprofits. Lankard’s life changed when he found his homelands covered with oil from the Exxon Valdez disaster, and he swiftly went from being a commercial fisherman to a dedicated community activist. In Lankard’s view, not only were the trees and wild salmon endangered, so were the Native cultures that depended on them. He has since helped preserve one million acres of wild salmon habitat along the Gulf of Alaska coastline and is now building regenerative economies through ocean crops of kelp. In his continued leadership linking culture with environmental solutions, Lankard is the president and founder of Native Conservancy, a nonprofit empowering Alaska Native peoples to preserve their ancestral lands and ocean. He has won numerous awards for his life’s chosen work as a social change artist.
The Impact Awards is a new program in 2025, born out of the James Beard Foundation’s impact work and advocacy policy priorities. Built on the previous Leadership Awards that were retired in 2024, the Impact Awards are administered by the Impact Committee of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees and reflect the year’s programmatic priorities. It is one of the Foundation’s three Achievement Awards programs, alongside the Lifetime Achievement and Humanitarian of the Year Awards.
Learn more at jamesbeard.org/awards.
