Climate Action United States Project #21548

Support Reforestation Across the Indigenous West

by Trees Water & People

Project Report | Apr 28, 2025
Where Trust Takes Root

By James Calabaza | TWP Indigenous Lands Program Director

Oglala Lakota community members tend to seedlings

Trees, Water & People’s (TWP) work on sovereign Tribal lands is more than landscape restoration. It has a deeper connection to the heart of the community, culture, and the well-being of the people, which are all inextricably tied to the land. This is one facet that makes our organization unique, and it complements our fundamental belief to invest in the capacity of Native people as conservation leaders. We aim to build this capacity through our diverse staff of land-grant educated leaders, guided by our Tribal partners to conduct culturally appropriate restoration projects that focus on traditional use and access to protect cultural resources, ecological vitality, and other sensitive areas.

TWP uses a human-centric approach to restorative work on Tribal lands, honoring the unique cultural and economic priorities of Tribal peoples. This process includes years of trust-building, empowering and amplifying the voices of Tribal communities in the conservation sector, and developing healthy, reciprocal collaborations with Tribal communities. Ultimately we seek to assist communities to develop self-sustaining, locally driven solutions for climate change that not only make a global difference but also directly support the people who are leading the fight.

This spring, TWP is continuing our long-term collaboration with the Oglala Lakota Tribe within the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Recently we delivered 500 Juniper seedlings and 150 Ponderosa Pine seedlings to continue community-based forestry efforts. These seedlings are a native and culturally relevant tree species that have both ecological and cultural importance. These tree planting efforts are taking place as a part of a larger restoration framework to build back an abundant pine forest back into the landscape and also develop windbreak shelter rows to protect people's homes and infrastructure.

After analyzing and tracking the environmental conditions the last two years in the region, TWP and partners have decided to take on a different approach by planting 2-3 year-old container stocked trees to increase survival probability. By increasing the age and root stock of these trees, they have a better chance to acclimate to drier, hotter conditions by having a further root development. We are optimistic that this tactical approach will increase survival and long-term resilience of critical ecosystems in the wake of a shifting climate.

When we begin our project by opening a channel to listen and fully understand the community’s needs, not only are we working to restore forest landscape that meets direct needs of the Tribe, but we are also rebuilding relationships that need many generations to heal and grow. We are planting trees, but it's trust that takes root.

Tree seedlings loaded up for spring 2025 delivery

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Dec 31, 2024
Growing Together

By James Calabaza | TWP Indigenous Lands Program Director

Seedling at Jemez Mountains restoration site, NM

Nearly 2,500 Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir seedlings have a new home in the greenhouse at Santa Fe Indian School (SFIS), owned and operated by the 19 Pueblos of New Mexico. The SFIS Community Based Education (CBE) department will integrate the seedlings in its effort to create hands-on learning opportunities with Native students. Participating students will develop research projects focusing on seedling survival — studying, monitoring, caring for them — and help plant them on Tribal ancestral lands.

At TWP, we see collaboration with SFIS as mutually beneficial to both students and local conservation efforts. The CBE program offers students practical experience in research design and data collection while building connections with local conservation efforts and organizations. For seedlings, an additional growing season allows them to grow heartier before planting. Often, following wildfires, seedlings are planted after one season of growth, but these landscapes offer brutal conditions for seedling survival. Student research builds understanding of conditions that help seedlings thrive, ultimately informing best practices for restoration efforts throughout the region.

Throughout the program, students will experiment with various methods for promoting seedling survival, from growing seedlings in various composts and amendments (such as biochar) to climatizing seedlings before planting. With support of SFIS staff, students will design and monitor results of these experiments, ultimately informing TWP’s and partners’ strategies for promoting seedling survival. In addition to caring for seedlings in the greenhouse, students will have the opportunity to visit nearby restoration sites and be involved in monitoring after seedlings are planted, opening a view of the process from start to finish. To further see this endeavor, TWP also hopes to purchase seeds, which students can use to evaluate germination success and survival in different soils. The course will also include demonstrations and teachings from local experts, expanding students’ learning, and many students will be able to develop their research as part of a senior capstone project, required to graduate.

Just as we hope the seedlings of today will become the strong, healthy forests critical to the landscape, we know the students of today will become the land managers and stewards responsible for them. For the Pueblos of New Mexico, that connection began centuries ago — we are working together to ensure it endures for the centuries to come.

Cochiti Pueblo student on seedling planting day.

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Sep 5, 2024
Having Better Conversations with the Forest

By James Calabaza | TWP Indigenous Lands Program Director

This summer, Trees, Water & People signed a five-year agreement with Santa Fe National Forest to collaborate with both Tribal and non-Tribal agencies on watershed-scale restoration and post-fire resilience in the East Jemez Mountains of New Mexico.

Planting trees is a fundamental and gratifying part of our work. If we’ve learned anything from nurturing trees in occasionally unforgiving climates, it’s that growth and healing require time, patience, and relationships. Trees need each other to develop their complex network of survival, and people and trees depend on each other for the same.

While our partnering Indigenous and Tribal communities hold a diverse set of beliefs, many of our Indigenous partners have the living and ancestral knowledge of how to implement these principles. Our work is rooted in following the leadership of those who practice sacred and ancient knowledge of these landscapes. We strive to support their work and are committed to developing long-term stewardship projects to not only engage in post-fire restoration, but to promote the cultural and scientific knowledge inherent in stewardship work.

This summer, TWP and Santa Fe National Forest (SFNF) finalized a five-year agreement to plan, implement, and monitor collaborative post-fire restoration on the ancestral Puebloan lands adjacent to Bandelier National Monument. This agreement allows TWP and its partners access to steward these public lands by employing large-scale, long-term restoration activities. TWP is partnering with Pueblos, SFNF, and other non-Tribal organizations to holistically remediate fire-disturbed landscapes and support cultural knowledge practice/revitalization. Activities will include native species planting, invasive species removal, surface fuels reduction, soil base reinforcement, and streambank rehabilitation.

Additionally, we are planning the annual 2025 New Mexico Tribal Forest & Fire Summit where reforestation and fire prevention work across New Mexico will be showcased. The Summit will highlight Indigenous and Puebloan epistemologies, practices, achievements, and challenges. Non-Indigenous participants and agencies will share similar knowledge to promote cross-cultural exchange, while maintaining that this Summit is designed to center the needs and challenges for Indigenous and Tribal communities in conservation.

This fall, TWP is partnering with the Pueblo of Jemez to plant 6,000 Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir seedlings on the Pueblo’s lands. We are honored by the trust and relationship built with our partners from the Pueblo of Jemez and will continue to engage in reforestation efforts at the request of the Pueblo.

Our work takes place in a larger ecological framework with many moving parts: people’s relationship to land, watershed restoration, fire prevention, climate change, political volatility, etc. We aim to have better conversations with the forest by tending to the complex network of parts that allow for a seedling to survive, not just planting trees and waiting for the forest to regrow. Our seedlings need a community of people, streams, medicinal and cultural fires, and a whole lot of listening.

We are honored to follow the community leaders who have been listening and caring for this forest since time immemorial.And we're grateful for your continued support of this important work to replenish Tribal lands and protect Tribal livelihoods.

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Trees, Water & People - Indigenous Lands Program

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