In the 2026 Stewards of the Southwest summit, TWP and partners brought forward the vital roles of Indigenous women in land stewardship. For the first time, we coordinated an Indigenous Women in Stewardship Panel as part of the summit, and we are honored to share some of the insights offered by our incredible panelists.
Amongst the hundreds of diverse grassroots organizations in Mesoamerica we’ve been learning from over the past year, the vast majority face shared challenges.
In every country and nearly every conversation, the inclusion of youth has been brought forward as one of the most pressing.
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.
When our partnership with them started in the late 90s, AHDESA was formed by only a few individuals who were investing everything they had in protecting local forests.
Today, the motivation remains the same, but that small nonprofit has grown into a robust organization serving thousands of families every year.