The principle of planning for the next seven generations has its origins in the Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy, founded in the tenth century, by the Oneida, Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, Seneca, and Tuscarora nations.
Oren Lyons, Chief of the Onondaga Nation, writes: ‘We are looking ahead, as one of the first mandates given us as chiefs is to make sure and to make every decision that we make relate to the welfare and well-being of the seventh generation to come… What about the seventh generation? Where are you taking them? What will they have?’