Cienega Watershed Partnership

The CWP facilitates cooperative actions that steward the natural and cultural resources of the Cienega Watershed while enabling sustainable human use. The watershed has relatively intact ecosystems even though its rich habitats are stressed increasingly by human, climate and environmental change. CWP collaborates with organizations, land managers and agencies, and individuals living in, working in, recreating in, and believe in preserving the Watershed.

The watershed's highly diverse and valuable lands are under stress from invasive species, disruptions of water flow from drought and diversions, insufficiently mitigated developments, climate change and recreational impacts. To combat these threats, CWP is engaged in important conservation efforts and restoration projects as well as monitoring critical elements. CWP works with partners in workshops and symposia like Science on the Sonoita Plains, and in ad hoc work groups to work on resolving issues. Continuing from 2016, CWP is assessing the health of the watershed and reporting out to the public and partners. Hands-on projects have been making a difference in restoring critical Chiricahua Leopard Frog and other native species habitats, removing bullrush and other invasive species, testing restoration techniques, and developing youth leadership in restoration. Connecting youth with the landscape and connecting the past and present are done through these programs: Youth Engaged Stewardship, Back Then and the Cienega Timeline project, the Cienega History Project, and Oral History.

Testimonials

Young people aged 15 to 19 participate every year in YES! (Youth Engaged Stewardship). Twelve teens are selected to work each summer to restore Cienega habitats where they design and implement a project. Celeste says this about the program: The YES! Program was a program unlike any that I had yet to experience. It gave me an opportunity not only to say I wanted to make a difference and how, but to also carry it out and see it through. The common practice with wanting to do something active in the environment is you would come up with a plan or desired outcome to be put into action by someone who had the money and experience. But with this program we had the opportunity to develop the skills that came with dealing with merely having total control over what we could do. It really adds a certain experience to the program you can't get anywhere else. It even embodies the name "YES!" perfectly. We are given the opportunity to carry out what we see fit and no one will look at it with the air of thinking we are ignorant teens. They will look at our ideas and will listen and won't say "NO!"