For life on Earth.
Our vision is a livable future.
Looking out from the road in Boulder County, much of the landscape appears green in spring or golden through summer and fall. But step off the asphalt and you'll find soil that barely absorbs rain, sparse vegetation, creek banks that erode a little more each season. This land is continuously losing the capacity to support much of anything.
The mechanisms for reversing this trend are real and well-documented, and they work by following patterns the land already knows. Move cattle in rhythms that rebuild soil biology. Dig swales that slow and spread water and let it sink. Plant trees and shrubs that hold banks, fix nitrogen, and provide shade and wind protection. These aren't interventions imposed on a landscape so much as conditions that allow it to do what healthy land does naturally. None of it is fast. None of it is guaranteed. But land that was degraded ten years ago can function differently today, and the difference is measurable.
Drylands Agroecology Research (DAR) is a Boulder County nonprofit that has been doing this work since 2017. We practice grazing, agroforestry, and contour terracing on private and public lands to improve how the land absorbs and holds water. We grow food and medicine in perennial systems that build ecological health over time. And we document what we find honestly, because the region needs evidence more than it needs optimism.
Our purpose is to regenerate landscapes to improve life on Earth. We're here to make real improvements on the land, starting right here at home, and to contribute our findings to stewards everywhere.
Land
We implement innovative land management techniques on public and private properties, treating each site as a research opportunity to better understand how we can bolster the land's regenerative potential.
Community
We invite people onto the land to do real work alongside us. When people tend land together, eat from it, and take responsibility for it, something shifts in how they understand their place in the living world.
Knowledge
Through careful observation and honest measurement, we learn what effective stewardship looks like in dry and changing climates. We share that knowledge openly, contributing to a broader movement working toward ecological and societal health.
We are farmers, designers, and scientists. We are educators, activists, and researchers.
Our Responsibilities
Impact
Land Stewardship Projects
Over six years, DAR has completed 97 water management and agroforestry projects and now grazes 859 acres across 16 private and public sites.
From Our Research Sites
DAR has continuously monitored 4 sites
(167 acres) for 4 years. These are highlights from that subset of managed land.
This is long-term responsibility
We don't know exactly how long ecological recovery takes at these scales. No one does. What we know is that it requires sustained presence, consistent measurement, and people willing to work the same land year after year without a guaranteed outcome.
That's what we're doing. And we'd like your help doing it.