​Most reservation land was located where nobody else wanted to live. They are often extremely hot, cold, windy and/or dry.  At Pine Ridge it is definitely all of them.  Additionally, the agencies that have governed them over the last 100 years have generally been poorly funded and this is particularly true regarding management of our natural resources.  Things like tree planting were just not a high enough priority to get funded and, as a result, the tree cover has slowly, but steadily declined after many decades of neglect.

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Working with our ally Trees, Water & People, we decided to do something about that...

10,000

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Ponderosa Pine seedlings

planted in 2015 within the

burned areas of Pine Ridge

Reservation

35,000+

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trees planted in 2018. 3,500 of which were planted in the sacred vision questing lands of Bear Butte.  Land used by the Lakota and several other tribes for these purposes for hundreds of years.

17,000

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trees planted in 2016 in Pine Ridge Reservation

19,000

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Ponderosas planted in 2019.

33,000

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trees planted in 2017 in Pine Ridge Reservation

2020 plans

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2020 Anticipated Tree numbers:

18,000 Ponderosa Pines

~ 3,000 cottonwoods

~ 350 wild plum

~ 350 buffalo berry

~ 350 chokecherry