FORESTS FOREVER
Spring 2025 • Trees, Water & People Newsletter
A Letter from Sebastian Africano, Executive Director
Dear Friends,
When I started at Trees, Water & People (TWP) 20 years ago, I couldn't visualize that one day I would be leading an organization of 17, working with a dozen partner organizations from Honduras to South Dakota, and impacting the lives of tens of thousands of people per year.
So many of the achievements we’ve had throughout our history are a direct result of our authentic relationships, our care for people, and in following through on our word. As such, the direct targeting of our work as part of federal budget cuts has been disheartening.
Beyond the $1.35M in awarded funds we’ve seen frozen, the cuts are forcing us to slow down, think strategically, and scale back our investments.
Our work, at a basic level, is about making and keeping commitments to communities over the long-term. The trust that grows from this type of engagement is what TWP is built on. When one pillar supporting those commitments breaks down, our reputation is put at risk.
In this issue of our newsletter, you’ll read about TWP’s greatest achievements in history – a 12,600 acre National Wildlife Refuge in Honduras, and a major restoration
agreement between the U.S. Forest Service and three Pueblo Tribes in New Mexico.
Our ability to build on these successes will depend directly on how we replace the funds lost to these cuts. Rest assured that TWP has what it takes to weather the storm, but we are seeking significant financial support to not lose our hard-won momentum.
Thank you for sticking with TWP through these turbulent times - together we’ll come out stronger on the other side!
With eyes on the horizon,
Sebastian Africano
Executive Director
COEAS has fought for nearly 40 years to attain legal protection of their forests.
TOGETHER, can we commit to the next five?
27 years ago, Trees, Water & People (TWP) was introduced to a local effort to protect ancestral forests near the capital city of Honduras…
…where a group of local volunteers had been working since 1986 to defend Suyapa’s forest – a rich haven of biodiversity, and water source for more than 20,000 people – from threats of an encroaching city. The volunteers organized themselves as the Ecological Committee of the Aldea de Suyapa – COEAS, as we’ve known them since.
When TWP founder Stuart Conway visited Suyapa’s forests for the first time, members of COEAS had already spent 10 years protecting their ancestral lands from developers, timber harvesters, hunters, and human-caused wildfires, while inspiring local youth to become future guardians of the forests.
At the time, COEAS’s dream of permanently protecting their forests seemed near-impossible.
But as threats to their territory grew, so did their investment in protecting it.
By 2022, COEAS was hosting more than 5,000 volunteers and planting up to 50,000 trees every year, while building substantial public support for their cause.
The stage was set for a decades-long dream.
One year ago, we joined COEAS in mourning, and in making history….
Luis Hernán Baca Valladares – “Mero,” as he was known – was one of COEAS’s early founders. Mero spent all his life protecting the mountains of the Aldea de Suyapa and inspiring those around him to do the same.
In December 2023, he was murdered for his cause.
Honduras is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for environmental defenders, and to this day, members of COEAS face immense personal risk as they work to secure their community’s long-term survival.
Mero knew, probably better than any of us, he was working towards something much larger than his own life. We only
wish he could have been here to see it.
On February 28th, 2024, under a unanimous congressional vote, 12,620 acres of Suyapa’s forest were permanently
established as Honduras’ 75th protected area, in his name – the National Wildlife Refuge of Suyapa–Luís Hernán Baca Valladares, “MERO.”
Today, COEAS needs our support…
Establishment of the refuge was a monumental win – amidst a great loss – but the struggle is far from over.
The reserve is under severe threat after a long 2024 dry season and numerous wildfires, alongside ongoing dangers of urban encroachment, illegal poaching and timber harvest, and informal settlement.
Though congressional decree establishes legal protection, it doesn't provide the support needed to enforce it. As official co-managers of the refuge, COEAS’s long-term success rests on their capacity to build a robust organization in these first critical years of its establishment.
We are seeking to raise $1 million dollars over the next five years to ensure COEAS can maintain the refuge for generations to come.
With our support, COEAS will develop its institutional capacity, train and hire additional forest rangers and other staff, grow fire prevention and response capabilities, make water system improvements, continue biodiversity research and reforestation, and establish a welcome center to generate sustainable revenue.
And the dreaming hasn’t stopped…
COEAS’s next chapter includes laying the groundwork for a 74,000-acre biological corridor connecting the refuge to La Tigra National Park and Mount Uyuca Biological Refuge.
COEAS is showing us a clear path to the expansive, enduring outcomes we are all working towards.
We just have to take it.
And when we do, this is just the start of a centuries-long story.
“Historically, the Pueblos in New Mexico united to fight a common enemy. But in today's world, the enemy is the vast effects of climate change on our landscapes, our community, our people. The reunification of Tribes brings the life of the Pueblo Revolt back to the present day. The summit, a gathering of 20+ Tribes, is a way to honor what our ancestors did 400 years ago.”
— James Calabaza, Indigenous Lands Program Director
Investing in the Future of Santa Fe National Forest
Over the past six years, TWP has collaborated with the Pueblos of Cochiti, Kewa, and Jemez to lay the groundwork for expansive restoration of burned landscapes within ancestral Puebloan lands of the Jemez Mountains.
The five most destructive fires in New Mexico history have occurred within the past 15 years, and we recently signed a five-year partnership with Santa Fe National Forest (SFNF) to help them restore some of the most critical sites using Tribal crews.
In a matter of days, $1.25 million awarded to TWP for this work was frozen, perhaps indefinitely.
It’s a trying time for us, and for our Tribal partners. But Pueblo communities have fought for centuries to steward their landscapes and sustain their people. Federal funding or not, the relationships are strong, the plans are laid, and the vision is clear.
We’re ready to go.
And we’re asking our supporters to step in where the government has stepped out.
With this investment, TWP and the Tri-Pueblo Coalition will reforest 400 acres within Santa Fe National Forest, restore watershed health above Cochiti dam, reduce fuels on the landscape, collect seed, employ Tribal professionals and youth, and build local capacity for future restoration efforts.
Millions of people rely on the healthy function of this watershed, and restoring it is vital to maintaining local livelihoods, protecting key cultural sites, and ensuring Pueblo communities can stay rooted in their homelands for generations to come.
The costs of inaction severely outweigh the costs of our investment.
And we know moments of disturbance can become catalysts for more resilient systems to grow. We must meet the division and short-term thinking of our times with a defiant optimism and unwavering commitment to the long view – knowing outcomes that sustain generations may not come to fruition within our lifetimes.
The trees we plant over the next five years won’t be mature for another 50. But if those trees form healthy forests, stewarded by those who know them best, they’ll endure centuries.
No one can stop us from investing today in the world we know is possible.
IN THE RIGHT HANDS
Of the many lessons we’ve learned over the past 27 years, a few come to the forefront amidst today’s volatility.
We’ve learned enduring change is built on relationships, and relationships take time.
We’ve learned the real experts are those closest to the challenges.
And we’ve learned funding goes furthest when placed, with trust, in the right hands.
The greatest outcomes TWP has supported would not have been possible without donors who trusted us – and ultimately, trusted communities – to distribute resources when, how, and where most needed.
This isn't blind trust. It’s trust built on mutual understanding and shared commitment to a cause.
Today, more than ever, the urgency of our causes and growing uncertainty in our sector demands that trust-based practices become a norm in funding work like ours. Philanthropy can step up for organizations and communities in ways that honor local expertise, encourage adaptability, and build long-term resilience.
Recovery from funding freezes, USAID closures, and economic turmoil won’t come from short grant cycles with easily quantifiable outputs. Organizations need the flexibility to respond to a constantly changing environment and the stability to plan beyond the turbulence of a single administration.
It’s time for philanthropies to work alongside communities and invest in processes that will endure even the most tumultuous of moments.
“There are these big, daunting, dooming headlines that can be hard for all of us. But when I get to go meet the people doing the work, that is inspiring and that gives me hope. And that is what inspires trust-based philanthropy for me. The people are putting so much out there, and they give me hope. And so, of course I believe in them. Of course I trust them.”
– Jordana Barrack, Mighty Arrow Family Foundation
DEI IN CONTEXT
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.
Phillip: “It’s important for people to understand they can’t just look at DEI from the perspective of now. Historical injustices have led us to this point, because it’s never been an equal playing field. Inequality has been here for generations, from access to wealth, to land, to basic resources, to safe
environments to live in. We’ve had less than a generation of DEI compared to hundreds of years of unequal systems.
And the history is not that far back. Freedom of religion wasn’t granted to Native American people until 1978. My dad graduated in 1977.
To me, especially being a veteran, this is all about freedom – freedom of speech, freedom of ways of thinking, of ideas.
They’re scrubbing the federal systems of all things climate change, environmental justice, diversity, and one of the things that was alarming to me is they’re targeting Indigenous communities, Indigenous knowledge. But the erasure of that knowledge has huge implications.
Even from just a scientific view, you want to take in all data and then make an educated decision. But excluding this and that because it doesn’t fit within your ideology, that’s a danger.
Especially in Indigenous cultures, from my understanding, our inner connection with the environment is relational. These are our relatives, our family members. Would you harm your mother, would you harm your cousin, your relative? If you know your grandmother was sick, wouldn’t you go above and beyond to help her? The more we move away from Indigenous knowledges, the more we separate that feeling from the land.
But everything is sick right now. So how do we address that; how do we allow forest fires back in as a management tool; how do we bring health back? It's by integrating different ways of looking, different ways of perceiving. The more data we have, the better picture we have, the better plan we can make.
Now is a time we need to come together, understand our history, understand where our science comes from, recognize there is value in all of it, and use it to adapt, to move forward, to find different ideas.”
Heal the Planet Beyond Your Lifetime
Join The Canopy — A Planned Giving Program
The problems that we work on at Trees, Water & People (TWP) are centuries in the making and will likely outlive all of us.
We design our programs with future generations in mind. If the problems will outlive us, the solutions must as well.
The Canopy helps you commit some of the assets you’ve built over time to TWP’s mission of improving lives for those who will care for the earth after us.
We’ve built something special together over decades, and we’ve got decades more work to do.
Scan this QR code to schedule time with Sebastian to talk about your vision for people and the planet through TWP’s Canopy.
Donor-advised funds can support communities through the hard times.
Those times are now.
A grant from your DAF will make a bigger difference than ever, sustaining our momentum towards stable communities and healthy landscapes.
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.