Nia Tero

Overview

Nia Tero was established in 2017 by Peter Seligmann and a group of indigenous and non-indigenous environmentalist leaders. The name “Nia Tero” translates to “our Earth” in Esperanto, a constructed language chosen because it is not associated with any single culture or nationality. ³

Nia Tero has received funding from several major philanthropic organizations, including the Emerson Collective, the philanthropic vehicle of Laurene Powell Jobs; the MacArthur Foundation; the Mulago Foundation; the Bezos Earth Fund; Conservation International; and MacKenzie Scott’s philanthropies. ⁴

As of 2026, Nia Tero reported distributing more than $125 million in grants since its founding, with approximately 92 percent directed to indigenous organizations, their fiscal sponsors, or partner organizations selected by indigenous groups. In January 2025, Seligmann stepped down as the chief executive officer and the board appointed ‘Aulani Wilhelm, who had worked as the organization’s chief strategy and external relations officer, as his successor and the first indigenous person to hold the role. ³

Funding and Key Donors

MacKenzie Scott, the philanthropist and ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, provided a reported $60 million grant to Nia Tero in 2021 and 2022. ¹ The MacArthur Foundation has also funded the organization, including support for indigenous-led investment initiatives in South America and the Pacific Islands. Between 2017 and 2023, the MacArthur Foundation awarded approximately $30 million in grants to Nia Tero. ⁵ The Bezos Earth Fund provided grant funding to Nia Tero as part of their shared membership in the Protecting Our Planet Challenge. ²

Protecting Our Planet Challenge

In September 2021, Nia Tero joined several philanthropic and environmentalist organizations to launch the Protecting Our Planet Challenge (POP), a coalition that pledged $5 billion over ten years to support the creation, expansion, and management of protected land and marine areas worldwide. The initiative supports the international “30×30” conservation goal, which seeks to place 30 percent of the world’s land and oceans under protection by 2030.  ⁶

Other founding participants included the Arcadia Fund (a fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin), the Bezos Earth Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Bobolink Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the International Conservation Fund of Canada, Re:wild, the Rainforest Trust, the Rob Walton Foundation, and the Wyss Foundation. ²

Leadership

As of January 2025, ‘Aulani Wilhelm was the chief executive officer of Nia Tero, succeeding founder Peter Seligmann, who remained a member of the organization’s board of directors. ⁷ Prior to becoming CEO, Wilhelm worked as Nia Tero’s chief strategy and external relations officer. Before joining the organization, she held senior ocean conservation positions within the U.S. federal government and was a senior vice president at Conservation International, a left-of-center environmental organization. Wilhelm is also a co-founder of Big Ocean and the founder of Island Water.  ⁸

Peter Seligmann founded Nia Tero in 2017 after previously co-founding Conservation International, where he served as the chief executive officer for approximately three decades. Following his departure as Nia Tero’s CEO in January 2025, he remained a member of the organization’s board of directors. That same month, Seligmann became the chair of Silvania, a biodiversity conservation initiative launched by Mercuria with a reported $500 million commitment to conservation and ecosystem restoration projects. ⁹