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.

Our long-term partnerships in Central America have led us to countless models that generate value locally while retaining communal, land-based values. These models, with the right support, could be a foundation for inclusive economic stability as the region faces high levels of inequality, shifts in migration, and climate change.

Today, as millions of eyes turn towards Washington, we’re staying focused on the communities at the heart of what we do. We’ve brought together members of our team to share their perspectives on our work, our vision for the future, and our collective path forward.

TWP has partnered with Utz Ché, a network of over 40 communities and collectives in Guatemala, since 2012. Utz Ché means “good tree” in the Mayan language, K’iche’, and the organization represents approximately 200,000 people throughout the country, more than 90% of them Indigenous.

In early 2023, passing through a hard time personally and trying to find my way back to the biology field, I stumbled upon a hidden gem in southern Guatemala, the community of La Bendición, thanks to applying to a job as a researcher assistant. True to its name, this place felt like a blessing from the moment I arrived.

In 1987, when the Comité Ecológico Aldea de Suyapa (COEAS) began to protect the mountain, it did so with a group of young men and women committed to taking care of the area's water resources

As Mexico experiences one of the hottest and driest years on record, the vital need to protect watersheds remains at the forefront for many of our partner communities. This summer, nearly 68% of the country faces moderate to extreme drought, and large stretches of Mexico City came dangerously close to losing water access entirely.

When our partners say the sky is the limit, they don’t often mean literally. 

But of the hundreds of thousands of trees sown by our partner in El Salvador, Agua y Arboles para el Pueblo (AAP), one has reached new heights. 

In early April, AAP’s executive director, Armando Hernandez, received an unusual call from the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador. Frank Rubio, a well-known U.S. astronaut of Salvadoran descent, was visiting the country and needed help planting some very special seeds.

The Association of Agroecological Promoters of Jalapa (ASOPROAJ), an indigenous organization of the Xinca people in Guatemala, represents a light of hope in the country's Dry Corridor, especially in the municipality of San Carlos Alzatate. Since its legal constitution in 2022, ASOPROAJ has grown to 80 promoters between men and women distributed throughout the region, there are currently 15 active members in leadership positions.

For years, TWP has been studying and exploring innovative climate resiliency strategies across the Americas. In 2023, our Central America team had the pleasure of attending our first Climate Week in Panama, where we met exemplary organizations working across Mesoamerica.