Support Reforestation Across the Indigenous West

Wildfires in the Southwest have been more intense, larger, and more destructive in recent years, exacerbated by extreme weather patterns and dwindling watersheds. In New Mexico, South Dakota, and Colorado, Trees, Water and People's (TWP) Indigenous partnerships ensure that work on the front lines are locally-led, so communities with direct needs for healthy landscapes are empowered to find long-term solutions for preventing and combatting megafires.

Part of ensuring the local voice is heard in wildfire management is training and ecological exchange, and TWP is honored to sponsor several training opportunities each year to encourage networking and collaboration. Hosting and attending training that embraces participants' traditional knowledge and folds that into scientific solutions offers a way for communities to preserve and protect culture, apply methods used for many generations, and still allow for innovation to accommodate an ever-changing climate. 

This year, TWP has hosted and supported trainings and workshops for: 

Seed collection: Last month we supported the Pueblo of Jemez forestry program to attend a cone and seed collection training. The crew is now trained on how to harvest high quality, local Ponderosa pine tree seed to ensure that the seedlings our partners are generating have the best chance for survival and adaptation to a changing climate. 

Youth development: TWP provided mentoring and internship support for Indigenous youth to earn income for reforestation work, offering them the career pathways in natural resource development and sustainable land management. This Fall, we will be contracting out four Indigenous Youth Conservation Corps crews from various organizations to plant 10,000 mixed-conifer seedlings on the burn scar of the Cerro Pelado fire within the Jemez Mountains of North-Central New Mexico. 

Not only is it important that Pueblo and Tribal communities are taking lead in fire management, but it is equally important that those communities unite, collaborate, share knowledge, and learn from each other in a way that knits together a fortified front against the impacts of climate change. 

Thanks to GlobalGiving donors, we're able to offer and support training that empowers local leadership, is guided by ancestral, nature-based methods, and protects land and culture, all the while giving an important priority to the Indigenous voice.