New Mexico Conservation in Prisons Program

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About the Program

The Conservation in Prisons (CIP) program envisions a future where conservation and rehabilitation go hand in hand. Through hands-on training in native plant propagation, greenhouse management, and habitat restoration, participants gain meaningful skills while contributing to the health and resilience of local ecosystems. The program fosters dignity, purpose, and environmental stewardship inside prison walls and beyond. By creating opportunities for skill-building, teamwork, and engagement with the natural world, CIP empowers participants to prepare for successful reentry and positive community impact. The program supports the National Seed Strategy by seeking to preserve ecologically and culturally significant plant species to benefit wildlife as well as people and cultures.

Partnership

CIP is made possible through our partnership with Central New Mexico Correctional Facility (CNMCF), where participants gain hands-on experience in native plant propagation and habitat restoration. The program also supports the Southwest Seed Partnership (SWSP) by producing high-quality native plant plugs used to be planted at farms operated by SWSP partner growers as well as for IAE’s restoration projects across the Southwestern U.S. Through this work, participants contribute to meaningful conservation outcomes while building skills that prepare them for reentry and future opportunities. This collaboration demonstrates how education, rehabilitation, and ecological restoration can thrive together.

Education

Education is the central focus of the CIP program. Participants gain hands-on experience growing native plants, participate in bi-weekly conservation lessons, and lectures from guest speakers. Guest speakers working in the field of conservation or agriculture teach and engage students in conversations on horticulture, pollinators, cooking with native plants, ecology, and art. At the end of the program, students receive a certificate of completion highlighting their accomplishments. CIP’s education component fosters a two-way relationship with the land: participants learn from the ecosystem as they care for it, making restoration a collaborative, rather than transactional, process.

Current Projects

CNMCF maintains a greenhouse at the Level II unit in Los Lunas, New Mexico, which serves as the primary classroom during the warmer months and the space where we grow and care for plants. Ongoing restoration priorities guide which species are cultivated, including plants for pollinator recovery projects such as our River for Monarchs project. Plans are underway to develop a native plant “restoration garden” in a currently unused area of the Level II geriatric unit’s yard, driven directly by the interests and needs of the participants. Students are actively involved in every step, from habitat assessment and garden design to plant selection and proposal writing. This student-led collaborative learning ensures the CIP program reflects their specific vision and learning goals. The garden will serve as an additional educational space, allowing participants who cannot leave the facility to continue building horticultural and restoration skills, while reinforcing the reciprocal connection between participants and the ecosystems they care for.

Conservation Ecology Projects Supported by CIP

(2025) Program was restarted at Central New Mexico Correctional Facility’s Level II Geriatric Unit. Students grew 3,750 nursery plugs of Sand dropseed (Sporobolous cryptandrus) for seed increase fields through the Southwest Seed Partnership. Students also identified the need for a restoration garden at the prison site and have begun the process of proposing the plan to prison administrators.

(2023-24) CIP students grew horsetail milkweed and nectar species for the River for Monarchs project. This collaborative habitat restoration project is creating 16 stepping stone sites along 200 miles of the Rio Grande River corridor to support migrating and breeding monarch butterflies.

(2019) CIP students grew 5,000 nursery plugs to be utilized in a native seed production field at a Grow the Growers farm in Albuquerque, NM. Species grown included purple prairie clover and Cota. Students also created an ethnobotany garden on-site at PNM.

(2018) CIP students grew 5,000 milkweeds (horsetail and showy) and assisted with outplanting on BLM land at Santa Clara Lake.

(2017) CIP students grew 5,000 plants of species that support wildlife on BLM lands: mountain mahogany, fourwing saltbush, winterfat, apache plume, red whisker clammyweed, common sunflower, and upright prairie coneflower (funded by a NM Department of Game and Fish, Share with Wildlife Grant).

About the Program

Partnership

Education

Current Projects

Conservation Ecology Projects Supported by CIP

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