NMCEWL Fellowship for Convening Community Collaborations

Introducing our first three 2022 NMCEWL Fellow awardees

Holistic Management International formed the New Mexico Coalition to Enhance Working Lands (NMCEWL) in 2017 to bring together a broad group of stakeholders in working lands in the state including farmers, ranchers, nonprofit organizations, land agencies, and the private sector to support collaboration and stewardship. In 2018, a group of foundations announced a philanthropic effort called Zone Grants to provide planning and implementation funding to New Mexico nonprofits in five “zones”, one of which was sustainable food and farm systems. NMCEWL was a recipient of this funding. The support has enabled the program to hire a full time coordinator and to develop a fellowship program to support leadership development in working land stewardship. Our first cohort of fellows convened throughout 2022.

We believe that the best people to address the needs of their communities and the lands those communities rely on for food and income are the people who live, work, and lead in them. We also believe that all of us, from all backgrounds and experiences, have much to learn and teach about how to promote diverse and equitable working relationships, particularly when it comes to working lands.

We are thrilled to introduce you to a few of our 2022 fellows. Part of our criteria was to seek out fellows who are passionate about grassroots leadership in the field of agriculture or conservation in their region and want to see greater breadth of participation in designing and implementing agricultural and conservation resiliency on the ground. We are fortunate to have found just that in our first round selection of individuals. We are excited to introduce three of our nine first-year fellows.

During their fellowship, fellows worked with each other and a diverse group of mentors from across the state with experience in managing conservation and agriculture projects; facilitating cross-culturally, across difference, and with community; navigating land tenure dynamics in the state; getting projects funded; and shaping the ways communities across the state steward land.

We encourage you to learn more about the full cohort of fellows and the other work of NMCEWL at www.nmcewl.org