Western Landowners Alliance has received $15 million from the USDA’s Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities program.

The goal of the funding program, according to the USDA, is to combat the climate crisis by partnering with agriculture, forestry, and rural communities to provide climate solutions that strengthen rural America.

In an email to supporters, Western Landowners Alliance Executive Director Lesli Allison noted that the funds will help the alliance “collaboratively develop a new model for working lands management, conservation, and financing that values how ranching and ecosystem services like clean water, healthy soils, and carbon storage can go together.”

Developing Climate-Smart Models for Land Management

Recipients of the most recent round of Climate-Smart Commodities funding were announced in December. Of the 71 projects funded nationally, 3 will be led by Western Landowners Alliance. Each project received $5 million in federal support:

Northern New Mexico Hub of the Western Working Lands Climate-Smart Network

• Lead Partner: Western Landowners Alliance
• Partners: Working Lands Conservation, National Latinos Farmers and Ranchers
• Goal: Empower New Mexico Latino and underserved beef and pork producers and their partners to develop, implement, monitor, quantify, and broker climate-smart livestock projects.

Southwest Hub of the Working Lands Climate-Smart Network

• Lead Partner: Western Landowners Alliance
• Partners: Working Lands Conservation, Indian Nations Conservation Alliance
• Goal: Empower Southwest tribal beef and pork producers and their partners to develop, monitor, quantify, and broker climate-smart livestock projects.

Colorado Hub of the Western Working Lands Climate-Smart Network

• Lead Partner: Western Landowners Alliance
• Partners: Working Lands Conservation, National Latino Farmers and Ranchers, Central Colorado Conservancy
• Goal: Model a successful, durable, and transferable climate-smart commodities market model to regenerate working landscapes.

Rethinking Land Use

In a recent webinar, Western Landowners Alliance Stewardship Coordinator Breanna Owens discussed the projects and their overall mission, which she described as an investment in “place-based partnerships to normalize climate-smart management on western livestock operations.”

Through these projects, the alliance hopes to continue its work to develop land management techniques that balance functionality for agriculture commodity production alongside environmental sustainability.

“Our landscapes are capable of so much more than we’re giving them credit for,” Owens said.

About Western Landowners Alliance

Western Landowners Alliance advances policies and practices that sustain working lands, connected landscapes, and native species. The alliance strives to provide a collective voice and shared knowledge base for landowners striving to keep the land whole and healthy. Learn more at Western Landowners Alliance.