Support Reforestation Across the Indigenous West

Success in the arena of reforestation is counted in years, and oftentimes decades. Those of us who have worked to help communities conserve forests, watersheds, and biodiversity on Tribal lands have learned so much about patience, adaptation, and respect: a respect for the lands and their ever-changing microclimates, and a respect for the traditional ways of sustainable land management that have helped Indigenous livelihoods thrive for many generations. 

This week, Trees, Water & People (TWP) was honored to deliver 16,000 plants to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota to begin a new generation of forest on the Oglala Lakota lands. These culturally significant plants – 5,000 ponderosa pine, 5,000 cottonwood, 3,000 chokecherry, and 3,000 currant plants – will grow up with the Oglala Lakota youth, and help restore lands depleted by drought, forest fire, and overgrazing, so that the next generation might thrive and preserve the traditional ways of this community. This month, thanks to the generosity of TWP’s supporters, local crews will plant all 16,000 plants. The work brings hope and possibility that with time, these new plants will restore significant biodiversity to the forests and deepen the roots of the community’s culture and its connection to the lands.

In the meantime, this summer is a time for field work with our Tribal partners to the South: the Jemez, Kewa (Santo Domingo), and Cochiti Pueblos of New Mexico. TWP’s work on land management and restoration projects for these communities is both big and small: from reinstalling fencing lost in recent the recent megafires throughout New Mexico, to recruiting and hiring community members for reforestation work, to planning large-scale land restoration designed to protect and enhance the Rio Grande watershed upon which our Tribal partners depend.  Planting efforts are currently being scheduled for Fall 2024 where projects will be taking place on Tribal trust lands and ancestral lands (public lands). 

While this work may take a generation or more to see impact, TWP knows that it is the small gestures, in the scope of a larger goal for reforestation throughout the Southwest, that build together for a generational stronghold for the Indigenous communities most impacted by climate change. The smallest seedling – whether it’s an individual tree or a single donation – is all the drive that TWP needs for this conservation work that’s built to last many lifetimes.

Links:

• Trees, Water & People Indigenous Lands Program