It’s been a practice of mine to leave flower seeds behind when I move from one house to another. I suppose it’s a small act of reciprocity, trust, leaving something for the next temporary stewards.

At TWP, I’ve come to realize how much the organizations we support are doing this every day, in the big ways. 

They are investing everything in outcomes they will never see, because they know it’s the right thing to do. 

We all need to learn to do the same.

It’s been more than 20 years since we met Chief Henry Red Cloud.

At the time, he was building the foundations of Lakota Solar Enterprises – one of the first Native-owned renewable energy companies in the U.S. – to support his community in the Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota.

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.

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.

Twenty-eight years ago, our organization started with a focus on planting trees. 

But since our founding, we’ve seen the need to attend to a whole context – forests aren’t sustained without people, and people aren’t sustained without opportunities for work, a connection to their culture, and a voice in the decisions that affect them.

Earlier this month, in Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico, TWP hosted the third annual Stewards of the Southwest Summit. 

Although this event is only in its third year, we’re amazed to see the relationships that have already grown. Attendees are returning to see familiar faces and continue where conversations left off, year after year.

Fencing isn’t often the first thing to come to mind when we think about conservation.

But working from the local level continues to teach us that different places need different things. Some may need connectivity, some may need protection.

At TWP, we’ve always believed local leaders are the best equipped to address their communities’ challenges. But in many of the regions we work, women experience those challenges in distinct ways and continue to face barriers to leading their solutions.