We belong to an incredible ecosystem.
One species among millions of others, striving to live together in a delicate balance.
It’s a vital connection, and one we can’t afford to lose.
It’s time to look at our world — the natural world — in different ways.
In memory of Louise Shepperd. She kept the old genetics safe and knew more than anyone the connection the Churro had to the land.
Rio Milagro Foundation plans to find out how desert landraces like the churro sheep benefit the landscape that is becoming hotter and drier. Their unique adaptions over five centuries is key to our understanding.
Our Mission
Rio Milagro Foundation is a women-lead 501(c)(3) non-profit that is dedicated to studying and preserving biodiversity through advancing the welfare of the landrace Churro sheep. We plan to expand their positive impact on ecosystems and enhance the economics for communities that participate in their nurture. By understanding how nature can help us, we want to inspire people and mobilize resources that support and sustain this desert landrace sheep for the next generations.
Our objectives are:
Establish and protect the genetic profile of the primitive desert Churro sheep.
Research and demonstrate the beneficial effects the Churro sheep have on drought-prone ecosystems.
Produce economic incentives using their unique adaptations to expand churro flocks.
Educational outreach on how landrace species can help with climate change and resilience.
This is how we will do it.
Problem
According to a report conducted by NatureServe in 2023 studying biodiversity in the US, around one-third of plants and animals in the nation are at risk of extinction, and 41 percent of ecosystems are at risk of “wide-range collapse.” Threats from reduction in biodiversity are present within many ecosystems.
Opportunity
With climate change as an existential threat, the benefits of landrace species (animal landraces are historic local breeds often characterized by low production levels, so that their economic sustainability is often threatened and the risk of extinction is high) remain untapped. Landraces everywhere, i.e. plants and animals autochthonous to a specific region, have the ability to assist us in conserving the soil we stand on, the air we breath and the cultural history of age old people.
Solution
Our foundation is creating a women-lead movement to build knowledge that generates sustainable, climate resistant infrastructures. Landraces are valuable for what they are, not for what we can make them into. They are important gene banks worldwide because they are naturally adapted to extremes like drought and heat. Climate change is proving them to be the salvation of our food supply and protecting ecosystems.
The Churro Sheep is a desert landrace and a keystone species originating in the Southwest US and Mexico and is essential to our efforts. They have deep genetic diversity that is the wellspring of survival strategies for the future.
How the fund works
Rio Milagro Foundation advocates for the last remaining biologically significant flocks of Churro sheep.
Located mostly in New Mexico, parts of the Colorado Plateau, and Mexico these flocks in their traditional homeland represent some of the last remaining primitive genetics of the desert landrace sheep in North America.
An initial investment will make it possible to fund flocks that still retain the primitive genetics of the desert churro sheep. We have developed the trademark, TrueChurro™ and its initiative program to support these genetics in research and product development.
Investments will generate business strategies for the unique adaptions for soil mitigation and regenerative grazing plans. This allows flocks to sustain and build upon themselves.
Delivering economic viability to communities
Local entities - including New Mexico Acequia communities, tribes, and other rural communities are primed to benefit from our incentives.
When adequately funded, this investment will deliver resources, through innovative approaches of the Churro’s worth, to hispanic, anglo and indigenous communities. This creates the expansion and geographic distribution of the Churro economically attractive, locally and internationally, and improve the lives of the shepherds that tend to them.
Through the TrueChurro™ initiative, Rio Milagro Foundation gives back to the shepherds that protect the primitive flocks.
Actions needed
Our research and development efforts today focus on leveraging the unique strengths of the Churro to enhance the environment and address loss of biodiversity. Through a combination of individual donations, state and local grants, private grants and research, we have established a robust philanthropic business model that ensures the Foundation’s sustainability. Our current portfolio of projects creates opportunities that enable our projects to flourish and provide resources for future growth and expanded focus to other plant and animal landraces beyond the Churro.
By joining our community of supporters, your gifts will go directly toward the accomplishments of the Rio Milagro Foundation mission today and for decades to come.
Churro sheep are climate heroes.
They possess the deep genetic diversity and evolutionary wisdom that coupled them harmoniously with their desert environment. To commit to the churro sheep is to commit to regional, cultural, and species diversity everywhere.
