Most of the work TWP supports will need to carry on long after we are gone. 

We face multigenerational challenges that require multigenerational responses, and bringing youth into leading them is the core of their continuity. 

We’ve been honored to be a part of that continuity within the Traditional Harvest Project in Southwest Colorado. In collaboration with the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe (UMUT), Montezuma Land Conservancy (MLC), and other partners, the Traditional Harvest Project has supported Tribal members in planting and accessing culturally-significant plants and restoring riparian habitat along the Mancos River.

After years of collaboration between our Indigenous Lands Program and local collaborators, we are proud to be concluding the first phase of the County Road 39 Traditional Harvest Project in Southwest Colorado. 

While we are working to continue and expand this project regionally, the first phase focused on riparian restoration and planting of native species along 3 private easements of the Mancos River.

Traditionally, the Núchíú (Ute people) were nomadic, moving across vast ancestral lands to steward the resources, including native plants, that supported their lifeways. Today, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe (UMUT) members are restricted to less than 600,000 acres of Reservation and Fee land from which to collect traditional plants, year after year.