The City of San Elizario’s Urban Agriculture Department will receive $25,000 to build and scale its water banking program in El Paso County, Texas. This project will provide infrastructure and training to residents to harvest and then sell or trade collected rainwater and, in turn, support local small-scale agriculture, mitigate regional climate impacts on water supplies, and create community-based economic benefit.

Watch the final presentation in English or Spanish.

Hispanic Access Foundation and Por La Creación will receive $50,000 to help realize their vision of creating a Rio Grande Valley Nature Park in the Texas borderlands. This project is bringing Latino grassroots leadership to the forefront of a community-driven effort to protect habitat, create recreation access, and increase public health benefits within wildlife refuge parcels in Lower Rio Grande Valley.

Chama Peak Land Alliance will receive $75,000 from the Center to implement uplands restoration pilot projects for working lands in the Rio Chama watershed in northern New Mexico. This project will initiate an opportunity for ranchers and farmers to do replicable riparian restoration projects across the Rio Chama Watershed and the broader basin that address the need for training and capacity building along with monitoring data that will help partners address challenges in the region.

American Forests: Develop a five-year Integrated Resilience Action Plan for South Texas and Northeastern Tamaulipas to identify integrated biodiversity and community resilience goals.

Bat Conservation International: Implement community-based agave restoration, regenerative agriculture, and ranching, and create a network of community green business enterprises to support nectar bat foraging habitat and rural economies.

Chama Peak Land Alliance (CPLA): Initiate an opportunity for ranchers and farmers to do replicable riparian restoration projects across the Rio Chama Watershed and the broader basin

City of San Elizario Urban Agriculture Department: Build water banks with local El Paso County residents to harvest and then sell the collected rainwater to local agricultural users at market price, thus mitigating flood impacts while supporting local agriculture and the economy.

Colorado Rio Grande Restoration Foundation: Implement comprehensive river access, agricultural infrastructure improvements, and aquatic and riparian habitat restoration as part of a broader, long-term effort to protect and restore streams and rivers in the headwaters of the Rio Grande Basin.

Hispanic Access Foundation: Establish a wildlife refuge in Southeast Texas between the border wall and the Rio Grande, while advancing Latino grassroots leadership in local conservation efforts and increasing access to recreation opportunities.

Pronatura Noreste, A.C.: Establish a binational working group with the Río Grande Joint Venture to promote collaboration and governance mechanisms in coordination with the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) and the Comisión Internacional de Límites y Aguas (CILA) in order to improve the predictability and reliability of water deliveries to users in the United States and Mexico.

Terra Habitus A.C.: Identify and prioritize the recharge areas of the regional aquifer systems in Monterrey, Mexico, to support groundwater use planning and improve its sustainability, as well as design a payment mechanism for water services to generate new financing for the management of sub-basins and priority recharge zones.

Valencia Soil and Water Conservation District: Partner with wildfire experts, riparian ecologists and scientists, and other water stakeholders in the Middle Rio Grande to reduce wildfire occurrence and severity and to develop post-fire revegetation designs that are climate-adapted and maximize native biodiversity.