Canyon Country Consulting
Supporting Tribes to solve natural resource management challenges.
Hello, my name is Anne Mariah Tapp and I’m an attorney living and working in Flagstaff, Arizona.* I am originally from the Blanco River Valley in the rural Texas Hill Country, the ancestral lands of Lipan Apache, Mescalero Apache, Comanche, Tonkawa and Waco Peoples. I attended Colorado Law school, drawn by its incredible Federal Indian law, western water law, and public lands law programs. During my time there, I studied under Dean David Getches – a visionary leader in Native American rights and western water law – as his research assistant up until his untimely and far too early passing. David Getches taught me to always respect Tribal sovereignty in my work as a non-Native person and to deeply listen to the voices of Tribes and Native people.
Over the last decade, I’ve had the privilege of working for and with Tribal Nations on the Colorado Plateau. Most of my legal work occurs at the intersection of natural resource management and tribal sovereignty. Recent projects include writing Tribal Environmental Codes; designing and advocating for co-management frameworks, including the effort to protect Bears Ears National Monument; advancing efforts to bolster Tribal water resource management capacity in the Colorado River Basin; and advising philanthropic organizations on effective grant-making to Tribal nations and Native-led organizations in the U.S. Southwest. Alongside some amazing colleagues, I am honored to serve on the Board of Four Corners Rising, a new organization focused on supporting Diné communities in Northwestern New Mexico. As a non-Native person living on the Colorado Plateau, I firmly believe it is both my responsibility and a real privilege to support Tribal rights to create a fair and just West.
When I’m not working, you can usually find me rock climbing across the West, backpacking in the Grand Canyon, or at home in Flagstaff trying to carry forward my late, beloved grandmother’s watercolor painting heritage.
I live and work on the ancestral homelands of fourteen local Tribes, including the Diné, Hopi, Havasupai, Hualapai, Zuni, Pueblo, Yavapai, Apache, and Kaibab-Paiute peoples. I humbly acknowledge this area’s Indigenous nations, original stewards and Native descendants who still inhabit these lands and will forever know this place as home. I share a responsibility to recognize, respect, uplift, and acknowledge the Native people, cultures, and histories that make up our community.
Adapted from the City of Flagstaff and Red Feather Development Group Land Acknowledgement Statements.