Support Reforestation Across the Indigenous West

Our final order for the Colorado State Forest Service has gone in and tree seedlings are growing healthily at their nursery! By this spring and summer, all these seedlings will find their new home on Tribal Lands in South Dakota and New Mexico. Aside from pines and a variety of fruit trees, we have a diverse list of tree species that we will be reporting on as the season comes closer, as we are excited to begin supporting tribal food sovereignty this reforestation season. Our partners in both locations are hard at work to determine exact coordinates for planting sites.  On the Pine Ridge reservation, we will be reintroducing cottonwood trees as well as partnering with local schools and other small communities to receive a variety of traditional fruit trees across their tribal lands.

As you are reading this, our team is also traveling to New Mexico to monitor our first season of tree planting from last year, and evaluate successes, failures, and improve strategies for the upcoming year. Several Pueblo community members will be joining us to learn monitoring techniques and understand the idea behind gathering data for personal uses (e.g. agriculture or other purposes), and hopefully increase involvement and participation of more volunteers in the summer. We hope that this in-field mapping workshop and session will empower these natural resource leaders to continue the process of monitoring trees down the road. 

We are also thrilled to share that we will begin working with Ute Mountain Tribe in Colorado this year to restore riparian areas with culturally relevant trees such as cottonwoods and Coyote Willow. With your support, we are able to increase our capacity to partner with more tribes such as the Ute and expand the possibilities of what we can accomplish. 

Finally, a grant funder has opened the unique possibility for us to develop a professional documentary short film that will capture the work we’ve been doing, and focus on how tribal communities are leading the restoration of their natural lands. Stay tuned for more updates and be sure to follow along on our social media to receive the latest updates on the progress of this film! 

Thanks to your unreserved support, 2020 marks only the beginning of a new phase for TWP’s reforestation arm that will bring with it new territories, stronger partnerships, and better results for the communities we serve. We could not do this without you.