Finally Together Again

Silas Red Cloud leads the crew by creating a line for tree planters to follow. Photo by Evan Barrientos

by José Chalit Hernandez, Marketing Manager

Planting trees is about more than just planting trees. We hear this frequently from our partners. On Lakota Tribal Lands, planting trees is done with great care, intention, and gratitude. When asked about what makes Pine Ridge a special place for him, Chief Henry Red Cloud told us it was the beautiful country, the rolling hills and the animals. “It’s all here,” he mentioned as he spoke on the importance of honoring trees as relatives. 

After a year of managing the pandemic in their community, the Oglala Sioux Tribe was excited to join us and Red Cloud Renewable (RCR) last month by sending out a group of hard-working tree planters to join our spring planting. Thanks to all of the tree planters being vaccinated against Covid-19, TWP staff (who were also vaccinated) were able to join for the first time since 2019’s planting season to reconnect with old friends and meet new people. For five days, we planted trees alongside Lakota community members and visited former planting sites where we observed many healthy and robust ponderosa trees that were planted 5+ years ago. 

Tink and her son Ladon help arrange a tray of tree seedlings in the green house at RCR. Photo by Evan Barrientos

For many in the tree planting crew, the spring planting season presented a valuable opportunity to earn income, feel empowered and reconnect with others in the community after a long year of uncertainty and scarcity. Each day started bright and early with freshly made coffee and a hearty breakfast. During meals and between activities, the hired cook that supported the project, Tink, shared stories with us and the other tree planters about her time at Standing Rock supporting the NODAPL camp. Her son Ladon would run around the Sacred Earth Lodge at RCR with a big grin and greet us all in the morning and be there in the afternoon after returning from tree planting. For the first time in a long time, we felt deeply connected to our partner community. We felt incredibly grateful to join forces with this group of generous, resilient, and hard-working people. 

While in Pine Ridge, we also began filming the long-awaited short documentary about our reforestation efforts, thanks to another funding sponsor. As a supporter of our tribal reforestation programs, we want you to be among the first to gain exclusive access to this video content later this summer! See how below.

In New Mexico, our National Program staff are currently meeting with the Tri-Pueblo Coalition to finalize timelines and logistics for tree planting in the Jemez Mountains in the coming months. Tree planting in New Mexico will also be a unique opportunity as we enter our third year of partnership with Santo Domingo Pueblo and the second year with Cochiti and Jemez Pueblos. So many exciting things are on the horizon, and we can not wait to share more stories directly from our partners with you. Thank you for believing in and supporting Indigenous-led projects! 

Strategizing for COVID and Beyond: Virtual Conversations, Ecological Restoration, and Community Empowerment

Planting a tree seedling on Jemez Tribal lands (August 2020)

By Julie Liebenguth, National Program Intern

At TWP, we are committed to supporting tribal communities through the pandemic and are working hard to foster collective engagement across virtual platforms so that knowledge sharing can remain a crucial part of community-led empowerment.

In partnership with the Western Forestry and Conservation Association, Intertribal Nursery Council, and the U.S. Forest Service, TWP hosted a five-part webinar series earlier this fall to engage a range of indigenous voices in conversations about native food systems, ecologies, and cultural practices. In honor of Native American Heritage Month, TWP also co-sponsored a virtual event with the Intertribal Agriculture Council about the role of community-based, regenerative practices in strengthening sustainable foodscapes. You can view all the episodes for free here. 

In the coming months, TWP will continue developing new strategies – both on-the-ground and online – to support ecological restoration and community-based resilience amid shifting local and global contexts. 

Cultivating Engagement through Virtual Platforms 

Tribal partners in South Dakota delivering emergency food/water supplies to families in Pine Ridge struggling from shortages due to COVID-19 (April, 2020)

In the time of COVID, food sovereignty has become a key focal point for tribal communities. Through our five-part webinar series, experts in indigenous food systems shared their knowledge and skills with participants tuning in from various locations across the country. The virtual content was particularly designed to support indigenous communities to combat food insecurity by building or strengthening access to traditionally harvested foods, medicines, and plants. 

Topics addressed during the five interactive conversations ranged from the diversity of indigenous recipes, native seed collection, tribal nurseries, traditional agroforestry practices, and indigenous plant restoration.  

As tribal food systems are impacted by monoculture and climate change, each speaker emphasized the need to preserve biodiversity to recover ancestral practices and strengthen community and ecological health. Nurseries can jumpstart the process of healing and succession in damaged ecosystems while bringing communities together under “traditional learning environments,” said Jeremy Pinto, Research Plant Physiologist and Tribal Nursery Specialist for the USDA Forest Service, who also covered the ins and outs of nursery planning, implementation, and management.

Since building food sovereignty involves the recovery of both ecological and cultural knowledge, sharing histories and traditions tied to food is integral for re-establishing strong, indigenous food systems. As Chef Sean Sherman, founder of The Sioux Chef company, said, understanding the cultural diversity of ecoregions is important for indigenous communities because “these plants are part of our families. . . making us happy, making us healthy, giving us nourishment, and giving us stories.” Chef Sherman supports new generations of indigenous culinary programs under his non-profit, NĀTIFS.

Control over local production is also at the core of food sovereignty, and community-led governance keeps families and youth involved in creating sustainable food systems. In a separate event highlighting sustainable foodscapes, Kelsey Ducheneaux, a fourth-generation tribal rancher, shared her business model with viewers for re-localizing food systems. To help more communities strengthen local foodways, Ducheneaux detailed her experience combining regenerative knowledge and community-based collaboration to provide quality, grass-fed beef directly to local consumers. 

Looking Ahead 

As we approach 2021, TWP strives to provide more virtual learning opportunities for tribal communities adapting to COVID. We are currently transitioning our solar suitcase workshop to an online format so tribal youth can still access hands-on, uplifting, and empowering lessons that support youth-led agency over energy futures. 

TWP is also coordinating with The Nature Conservancy New Mexico Chapter, East Jemez Landscapes Futures and local organizations to implement new restoration project(s) on the headwaters and canyon bottoms of the Rio Grande River in the East Jemez Mountains, where water quality and ecological health is critical for many culturally diverse communities. 

Finally, in upholding TWP’s long-standing commitment to restorative conservation, we are excited to develop new opportunities that incorporate seed collection as a pivotal component for future restoration projects!

View all the episodes for free here. 

Thriving Beyond Expectations

A beneficiary of TWP’s clean cookstove program in Guatemala welcoming us before entering her home

by José Chalit, Marketing & Communications Manager

It’s the feeling of being welcomed into a stranger’s house with a fresh, warm cup coffee while we ask about their newly installed ‘Justa’ Stove or their new organic garden. I’ve heard people talk about this experience since I joined TWP last summer – folks that have been on a trip with us via TWP Tours, our Board of Directors, my co-workers – they’ve all shared stories with me about the unique experience of visiting the communities that TWP works alongside in the field. After returning from 2 weeks visiting our projects in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, these stories I have been hearing materialized into real experiences that changed my opinion about how our work has potential to create real change, and why it works.

When I first began visiting our projects last summer, I felt lucky to be part of developing communications around our innovative and meaningful community development projects, but it was too early for me to truly understand the bigger picture of what it is that we do. After I visited Guatemala in August to meet with members of the community of La Trinidad who had been displaced (again) by the eruption of Volcán De Fuego, I began to understand the impact of TWP’s work on a slightly deeper level.

It became clear that TWP prioritizes the voices and experiences of smallholder farmers first, and that our ability to continue working internationally with success hinges upon how we develop these relationships. Nevertheless, I still felt like I was missing a broader perspective of our road map.

Volunteer with the Environmental & Natural Resource Ministry monitoring El Salvador’s second planned fire break in its modern history

Over our recent two-week trip, I continuously reflected on whether or not the communities our work with local non-profit partners truly impacts their lives as compared to surrounding areas not yet reached. Needless to say, all throughout the Americas rural indigenous people are suffering from the environmental impacts of erratic changes in climate patterns. For example, the folks in the community of La Bendición in Guatemala have had to adapt away from centuries-old farming practices passed down from their ancestors because of a prolongated dry season that is limiting their typical harvest season. The Environmental and Natural Resource Ministry of El Salvador is in the process of implementing some of the first ever controlled burns in the country’s national conservation areas to prevent wildfires due to similar reasons. In both scenarios, our local non-profit partners have worked alongside these communities to implement programs and projects that address the immediate needs of local people while also creating long-term paths for people to have healthier livelihood opportunities.

Nevertheless, I came to understand that if any of these projects are to be successful, it is for two primary reasons:

• The knowledge and capacity held by those most deeply affected by the problems we are tackling positions them the best to champion the solutions to the challenges they face on a daily basis.
• We know that the most significant global polluters and extractors aren’t doing nearly enough to combat the fallout of their operations, so the folks (rural indigenous, more often than not) most impacted by the effects of environmental degradation are the ones worth investing our time, energy, and resources.

Whether it is through protected area land management in the highlands El Salvador or the clean cookstove implementation program led by indigenous women in La Bendición, the choice TWP makes to invest in the ideas of the most marginalized became even more evident to me.

It’s that feeling of being so readily and enthusiastically welcomed into a community by strangers who might not even speak your same language. It’s the palpable aura of hope, empowerment and self-esteem that prevails in a community that believes in itself and its ability to overcome challenges brought on by unexpected climate catastrophes. It’s beyond the results of what any study, number, or statistic can tell us, but something that is only felt by a close encounter with a community that is confident in their potential to thrive beyond even their own expectations. This is what it feels like to visit a community where TWP is working alongside, and we can’t emphasize enough how lucky we are to be doing this work that would be impossible without your support.