Chief Phil Lane Jr.  and the Four Worlds International Institute

Hereditary Chief Phil Lane Jr. is an enrolled member of the Ihanktonwan Dakota and Chickasaw Nations and is an internationally recognized leader in human, community, and economic development.

For the past 55 years, Chief Lane has worked with Indigenous Peoples from the Americas, Micronesia, Southeast Asia, China, India, Hawaii, and Africa. He served 16 years as an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada (1980-1996).

In 1982, Chief Lane co-founded the Four Worlds International Institute (FWII) with Indigenous Elders and Spiritual Leaders. Phil is also Chairman of Four Directions International and Compassion Games International.

Chief Lane has received multiple awards and recognition. He was the first Indigenous person to win the prestigious Windstar Award, presented annually on behalf of the late John Denver and the Windstar Foundation. In 2000, he received the Year 2000 Award for Freedom and Human Rights from the Swiss Foundation. Other award winners include Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai, the Dalai Lama, Lord Yehudi Menuhin, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, and Yevgeni Velikhov, Vice President of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. 

In 2008, Chief Lane received the Ally Award presented by the Center for Healing Racism. Particular emphasis for this award was for his dedicated work, for more than 19 years, as one of the key Indigenous leaders in the resolution of Canada's Residential School issue, which involved the sexual, physical, cultural, psychological, and emotional abuse of thousands of Aboriginal children in Canada. The process resulted in a settlement of more than $4 billion for Residential School survivors.

On August 15, 1992, recognizing his hereditary lineage of leadership and longtime service to Indigenous Peoples and the Human Family, Indigenous Elders from across North America recognized Phil as a Hereditary Chief of the Hinhan Wicasa and Deloria Tiospayes of the Ihanktonwan Nation through a Traditional Headdress Ceremony.

Chief Lane is a member of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) Council of Elders. He is the host of the Shift Network’s  Global Indigenous Wisdom Summits. Chief Lane is also an Honorary International Advisor to the Help Foundation of the Beijing Women's and Children’s Development Foundation and a co-founder and Global Trustee of the United Religions Initiative.

1982, Chief Lane founded the Four Worlds International Institute (FWII) with Indigenous elders and spiritual leaders across North America. FWII became an independent Institute in 1995. With Chief Lane’s guidance and applied experience, FWII has become an internationally recognized leader in human, community, and economic development because of the Institute’s unique focus on the importance of culture and spirituality in all development elements. 

The FWII's major initiatives include the promotion of Deep Social Networks and the Digital Fourth Way,  Environmental Protection and Restoration, the Compassion Games International, and Reuniting the Condor, Quetzal, and Eagle via the Fourth Way. The Fourth Way focuses on co-creating community-based, culturally respectful, principle-centered strategies and programming for human, community, and economic development that transcend assimilation, resignation, and conflict.

This network-building and development process uses cutting-edge digital communications technologies for local, regional, and global change by collectively addressing the health and well-being of Indigenous Peoples' Human Family and Mother Earth, particularly the leadership development and participation of our younger generations. Another primary focus has been supporting the development of the Salish Sea Bioregional Marine Sanctuary and other Bioregional Sanctuaries globally. 
Deep Social Networks (DSN) are principle-centered, collaboratively created, and community-based digital networks for uplifting education, sustainable and harmonious development, child protection, social development, and actualizing environmental justice.  After coaching and teaching at Walla Walla Community College from 1968-1970,  Chief Lane's work began in manifesting the Reunion of the Condor, Quetzal, and Eagle via the Fourth Way with the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas began in Bolivia in 1970-1972 and continued nonstop until today.
In June 2013, the Four Worlds Foundation officially opened at the City of Knowledge in Panama City, Panama.  It is the only Indigenous NGO of the 250 NGOs,  United Nations Agencies, Educational Institutions, and Businesses in the City of Knowledge. The Four World Foundation is the International Hub for actualizing the Reunion of the Condor, Quetzal, and Eagle across the Americas and beyond via the Fourth Way.
Four Worlds Foundation's work in Panama includes:
In November 2013, Co-Sponsoring the Festival of Biocultural Leadership with Dr. Jane Goodall, the Indigenous Leaders Summit of Panama, and the Spanish Premiere of the Award-Winning Documentary Shift of the Ages. This multidimensional International Event attracted more than 1200 national and international participants.


Supporting the formulation and signing of the Compriso Politico in April 2014. The Compriso Politico is a comprehensive legal agreement between the Leaders of the Seven Indigenous Nations of Panama and Panama's Presidential Candidates and their political parties. 

Chief Lane was honored to be selected as the International Witness of Honor to this Legal Covenant between the First Nations of Panama and the Republic of Panama. This Covenant is the most advanced Legal Agreement between Indigenous Peoples and Nation-States. When fulfilled by all parties concerned, it will be a global model and guiding light for unifying Indigenous Peoples and nation-states everywhere on Mother Earth.


Funding and supporting the Indigenous Summit of the Americas, April 2015, held in Panama City. Panama. Held simultaneously as the Summit of the Americas that brings all 36 nation-states, the Indigenous Summit brought together more than 300 Indigenous communities, organizational leaders, and representatives from across the Americas.


Funding and supporting the first Intergenerational Indigenous Women's Summit of Panama at the City of Knowledge in November 2015 with the National Coordinating Organization for the Indigenous Women of Panama (COONAMUIP).


We are supporting numerous workshops with the First Nations of Panama in rural and urban communities, including the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Participatory Human and Community Development, Youth Leadership Development, and the development of Bioregional Marine Sanctuaries.


Supporting the non-political election of Four Worlds Panama Board of Directors in April 2016. The Board of Directors of Four Worlds Panama comprises representatives of the Seven First Nations of Panama. Those eligible, by design, are six young women and five young men, 18-35. Elections for the Board are held yearly on the first day of Spring. Every member of Founding Board of Directors of Four Worlds Panama member speaks their Indigenous language, Spanish, and others.  The Board selects Advisors in various areas of needed expertise over 35. They are being mentored to eventually guide the work of the Four Worlds Foundation across Latin America.


Since June 2013, the Four Worlds Foundation has developed extensive relationships with Indigenous First Nations, NGOs, and Allies in Panama, the Americas, and beyond. This relationship-building includes active participation at Rio+20, the Parliament of World Religions, Global Meetings of the URI, the International Indigenous Leadership Gatherings, Annual Anniversaries of the Kuna Revolution of 1925,  Annual Meeting and Elections of the Nogle-Bugle Nation, COP21, COP22, and 
The work of the Four Worlds Foundation is summarized in this Pictorial Report of June 2013-Dec.2015.
On International Earth Day, April 22, 2016, Four Worlds staff were honored to be invited by the Mesoamerican Alliance to participate with Indigenous Peoples globally at parallel events surrounding the signing of the Paris Climate Change Agreement at the United Nations, International Earth Day, April 22, 2016. After seven years of consultation and refinement across the Americas, the International Treaty for Protecting and Restoring Mother Earth was signed in New York City, simultaneous to the signing of the Paris Climate Change Accord.
Indigenous representatives across the Americas, Indonesia, and the Allies of the Human Family signed this International Treaty. Signing Ceremonies of this International Treaty are now unfolding everywhere on Mother Earth, including Brazil and New Zealand. 
During the past four years, a primary focus of Four Worlds' work in North America with First Nations, Tribes, and Allies has been stopping the expansion of the Alberta Tar Sands, related Pipelines, and Tankers.  This work includes supporting direct action, developing International Treaties between Indigenous Nations, and researching and publishing the Critical State of Mother Earth. With this effort now fulfilled, Four Worlds is dedicated to those solutions that restore the health and well-being of Mother Earth and the Human Family.
These international treaties between Indigenous nations include the International Treaty to Protect the Sacred from Tar Sands Projects (January 2013) and the International Treaty to Protect the Salish Sea (September 2014). These International Treaties are bound with the Save the Fraser Declaration (December 2010). Together, they unite over 200 First Nations and Tribes across Canada and the USA.

This past November, at the Stairways Global Event at the Luxor Hotel, he received the prestigious 2023 Stellar Award for Service To Humanity.




Goals & Priorities 2023-2030


Focus: Educational 
To support the emergence of the "Seventh Generation" leadership by fostering young people's and women's participation, leadership, wisdom, and contributions in all positions of decision-making processes impacting life on Mother Earth.


Focus: Educational
To protect and restore Sacred Sites for ceremonial use, including repatriating cultural and ceremonial effects to Indigenous Peoples of origin. To support unified actions that educate and ensure that Indigenous arts and cultural expressions of the Sacred are respectfully portrayed in the media. 


Focus: Educational
To protect and restore the use of Indigenous plants, medicines, and sciences, including further establishing Indigenous healing and educational centers and integrating and promoting cutting-edge medical research and treatment, like Stem Cells, for holistic healing.


Focus: Educational/Capacity Building   
To promote the unprecedented, unified actions of the American Science and Engineering Society, Compassion Games International, the Salish Sea Bioregional Marine Sanctuary,  the United Religions Initiative, the Shift Network, United Earth, and the Help Foundation of the Women’s and Children’s Foundation of Beijing, in their dedicated efforts toward creating a more compassionate, just, sustainable and harmonious world.


Focus: Capacity Building
To establish an Indigenous Bank of the Americas (IBA) owned, controlled, and led by Indigenous Peoples. The IBA will unify the strength of the financial and natural assets of Indigenous Peoples to support sustainable and harmonious development. One of the fundamental focuses of the IBA will be the support of poverty alleviation initiatives in Indigenous Communities and beyond to balance the extremes of wealth and poverty, including the equality of economic and social opportunities for women and men.
Focus: Capacity Building
To unify Indigenous Peoples and Allies networks to galvanize, solidify, and realize the Reunion of the Condor, Quetzal, and the Eagle across the Americas and beyond. This unification includes actualizing further International Indigenous Treaties like the International Treaty to Protect the Sacred from Tar Sands Projects,  the International Treaty to Protect and Restore the Salish Sea, and the International Treaty to Protect and Restore Mother Earth.

These treaties include implementing and fulfilling International Trade Agreements between Indigenous Peoples and Nations and direct Trade Agreements with other Nation States.  This commitment includes restoring, promoting, and protecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples through National Covenants like the Compromiso Politico in Panama and the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, in consultation with Indigenous Peoples, with particular emphasis on the principle of free, prior and informed consent!


Focus: Environmental
To halt the destruction of Mother Earth's lands, waters, life, and cultures by extraction industries that are destroying the lands, waters, and Indigenous Peoples of Mother Earth.  Replace them with alternative energies, including solar, wind, tide, geothermal, and other green technologies on both the macro and community levels.



      8. Focus: Environmental:
           Establish and maintain Bioregional Marine Sanctuaries across the Americas as soon as possible. Bioregional Marine Sanctuaries are named areas of Earth, Water, and Air where natural animal populations are protected and restored to more than 50% of historic levels as soon as possible. Water quality and forest biomass levels are preserved and restored to very high concentrations. Bioregional Marine Sanctuary boundaries correspond to natural features such as watershed topography, vegetation types, oceanic continental shelves, and margins, including all rivers, creeks, lakes, ponds, estuaries, and aquifers.