Honoring Mother Earth: Engaging Native Americans in Community Reforestation (05-DG-11020000-063)

This project designed and organized community tree planting programs on the Pine Ridge reservation.

Trees, Water & People has been working on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota for five years. During that time we have organized four community tree planting programs and are working on our fifth.

The winters there are long and bitter with a fierce north wind that sometimes forms ice inside Lakota family's homes. The summers are extremely hot and most of the homes have no shade trees.

Many Lakota live in substandard homes or trailers unsuited for the extreme weather found onthe northern Great Plains. They spend an exorbitant amount of their income on their utility bills, often foregoing food or medicine in order to just stay warm and survive.

TWP works to improve their lives by helping them to reduce their utility bills, and providing them with more livable homes by planting trees as family windbreaks, installing solar heat systems and educating them to integrate renewable energy tools and techniques into their lives and cultural traditions.

Our NUCFAC funded project allowed us to document our tree planting program and distribute the resulting workbook, video and resource guide to other tribes and organizations throughout the Great Plains in order to stimulate additional Native American tree planting programs.

•To create and distribute an audio-visual workshop that was specifically designed for Native American reservation communities and took into consideration and highlighted their traditional cultural beliefs and how they support community tree planting efforts.

The goals of this workshop are:

•To educate reservation communities in the practical fundamentals of community forestry, specifically how to:

Plan windbreak and shade tree planting projects designed to reduce the impact of harsh environmental conditions and high utility costs

Implement those projects

Care for the trees planted in the reservation communities

•To utilize the tree planting project to provide the reservation residents a new and creative opportunity to reclaim, revitalize and reconnect to traditional cultural values of caring for the land and for their communities.

Attachments

Click here to download this final grant report as a PDF.