Wishtoyo Foundation

Wishtoyo is place, organization, and movement inspiring people to live in harmony with our Earth again. 

Wištoyo (wish-toh-yo), the Chumash word for "rainbow," serves as a “Rainbow bridge” linking Chumash and Indigenous lifeways with the protection of natural and cultural resources, utilizing traditional ecological knowledge to provide environmental and cultural preservation and justice, education, research, and advocacy. 

Wishtoyo is a Native-led organization founded in 1997 by Chumash elder, Mati Waiya, an enrolled member of the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation and serves as Chairman and Elder Representative for the Tribe. 

Our dream grew from humble beginnings to become a movement, a place, an organization— inspiring people to live in harmony with our Earth again. The challenges we face today are real. Our world is out of balance, from rapid climate change to increased social polarization. Key drivers of this imbalance are dominant worldviews that place us as separate from one another as well as from the planet. We accept our responsibility as original, free, independent people of Turtle Island. 

Our work is guided by the wisdom of our Indigenous ancestors before us as we practice traditional knowledge, science and modern technology of all forms to navigate a path forward to recover our land, air, waterways, and food systems. As practitioners of nature, we realize that our species does not exist in isolation from the biosphere; rather, our fate and that of our children and the future depend on it.