More than 25 years ago, Paul and Marilyn Thayer received a postcard from Trees, Water & People seeking donations for our clean cookstoves program. What started, in their words, as a “modest contribution” has grown into decades of close relationship and avid support.

La Bendición, “the blessing,” is a rural community in the Guatemalan highlands, formed by more than 80 Maya families. After being displaced from their homes amidst Guatemala’s Civil War, these families came together in 2000 to purchase a communal land base and rebuild their livelihoods.

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 has integrated the seedlings in efforts to create hands-on learning opportunities with Native students.

On March 4-6, within the ancestral homelands of the Mescalero Apache Tribe, Trees, Water & People had the privilege of co-hosting the 2025 New Mexico Tribal Forest & Fire Summit.

We appreciate all of our supporters who joined us on April 4th for the first of our quarterly webinars, The Path Forward – we’re always so inspired by the incredible group of people behind us.

As our Indigenous Lands Program Content Creator, Treston Chee unites his background, his love of the outdoors, and his talent for film and photography to connect the stories of our partners and supporters.

We’ve partnered with the Climate and Land Use Alliance (CLUA) and Coordinadora de Mujeres Líderes Territoriales de Mesoamérica (CMLT) over the past two years to support community-based organizations in strengthening their institutional capacity.

On March 4-6, within the ancestral homelands of the Mescalero Apache Tribe, we had the privilege of co-hosting the 2025 New Mexico Tribal Forest & Fire Summit. The gathering brought together nearly 200 Tribal foresters, natural resource experts, hydrologists, community leaders, and representatives from NGOs, state and federal agencies, academic institutions, and conservation businesses to focus on successes, futures, and associated challenges for Indigenous-led conservation.

Beyond the Grant: The Power of Funding with Presence and Purpose A Testament to Indigenous Leadership in Fire and Forest Stewardship
Written by Juliana Rodríguez—Conservation Social Scientist, M.S. Global Conservation Leadership & MEng. Environmental Management

In 2024, Trees, Water, and People (TWP) provided scholarships to four CSU students, all Indigenous women, working towards careers in natural sciences and conservation. Scholarships sustained three students’ work with the Laramie Foothills Bison Conservation Herd, and supported one, Lizzy Osterhoudt, in leading research that honors her experience as a Pueblo woman.

Gender equity has been at the center of TWP’s work since the early days of our clean cookstoves program, more than 27 years ago. At that time, we followed the guidance of local women to design the Justa stove – named after Doña Justa Nuñez, who led the process in Honduras – and develop a stove program that prioritized women’s health, protected forests, and created local economic opportunity.

La Colectiva is a feminist consultancy formed by four Indigenous women, born from challenges they faced within other organizations. As many women within community organizations still encounter an ingrained machismo culture and majority male leadership, La Colectiva seeks to re-empower at the personal and grassroots level.

Maria Magdalena Ixquiactap Tuc – “Magda” – has been a key leader in a collaboration between TWP and Coordinadora de Mujeres Líderes Territoriales de Mesoamérica (CMLT). As part of the regional initiative, Magdalena facilitates capacity building and knowledge exchange amongst community-based organizations in Guatemala.

Thanks to funds managed by TWP through the Forix Foundation, it was possible to improve and expand the facilities of the historic COEAS nursery.

As diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts are increasingly targeted at the federal level, TWP’s Indigenous Lands Outreach Coordinator, Phillip Chavez, shares his perspectives on the broader context of DEI efforts.

Jordana Barrack is the Executive Director of Mighty Arrow Family Foundation, one of TWP’s key funding partners and supporters. Established by the founders of New Belgium Brewing Company, Mighty Arrow‘s funding priorities include social justice, climate change, food systems, and land & water stewardship.

In February 2005, I left my home in San Francisco and spun out of the sky onto the notoriously short runway of Toncontín International Airport in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Two weeks prior I had attended my first ETHOS clean-cooking conference in Kirkland, WA, had met Trees, Water & People’s (TWP) founder Stuart Conway for the first time, and entered an obscure line of work that would move me toward my goal of getting paid to travel to Latin America.

At Trees, Water & People (TWP), we’re fortunate to have minimal exposure to current federal cuts, and to be well-positioned to sustain programs. Make no mistake, these will be trying times for the places we work and the people we serve, but TWP stands prepared to continue and expand our efforts.

After a long effort to organize and access support,  the Association of Xinca Agroecological Promoters of Jalapa (ASOPROAJ) attained legal status in 2022. ASOPROAJ is an association of more than 90 members from Indigenous Xinca communities in Guatemala, working to practice agroecology, develop sustainable livelihoods, and protect their territories.

As our work in New Mexico has expanded, we’ve focused on partnerships that unite conservation efforts with local employment opportunities, attending to the connections between ecological and economic stability.