Borderlands Restoration Network

Borderlands Restoration Network, doing business as Borderlands Restoration Leadership Institute, is a tax-exempt nonprofit organization based in Patagonia, Arizona, that provides native seed production, seed collection, and ecological restoration services to federal land-management agencies as a prime recipient on cooperative agreements and purchase orders. The vendor operates across western U.S. locations under open competition with no set-aside designations, competing on technical merit in native plant materials and watershed restoration expertise rather than SBA certifications.

The organization's capability portfolio centers on restoration-quality native seed and container plant production, locally adapted seed collection from the Madrean Archipelago semiarid highlands, erosion-control field implementation, and watershed assessment and monitoring. Borderlands Restoration Network operates a seed lab and propagation nursery on a 50-acre farm under contract to purchase (finalized by 2024), with a decade of experience serving burned-area rehabilitation, revegetation, erosion control, and habitat restoration. Representative prime contract work includes a $20,600 firm-fixed-price definitive contract awarded September 25, 2026 (most recent award), running through 2031, for native seed production serving the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service across the western United States under Executive Order 14398; a $9,987 purchase order from the National Park Service's Intermountain Region (March 2025) for watershed restoration seed collection at Fort Bowie National Monument; and a $7,544 purchase order from the same region (August 2024) for seed collection at Fort Bowie Historic Site. Representative grant work includes a cooperative agreement from the National Park Service's Intermountain Region (awarded June 2025, running through December 2027) under CFDA 15.963 (Southwest Border Resource Protection Program) to establish native pollinator plant seed conservation and provide workshops in English and Spanish in partnership with Tumacacori National Historical Park; an August 2024 cooperative agreement for research, technical assistance, and education services to the Southwest Seed Partnership covering native seed assessments, production, storage, research, and post-fire rehabilitation training (extending through August 2027); and a March 2024 cooperative agreement from Fish and Wildlife Service Region 2 for greenhouse installation and nursery production expansion.

Customer concentration is dispersed across Department of the Interior sub-agencies. The top five customer entities account for 82% of recent awards: the National Park Service Intermountain Region leads by count (5 awards, $18 thousand combined potential value), followed by Fish and Wildlife Service Region 2 (4 awards, $25 thousand), Bureau of Land Management National Office (3 awards), the Forest Service R3-Southwestern Region (1 award, $77 thousand), and BLM Arizona Region (1 award). By potential value, the Forest Service regional office dominates at $77 thousand, with FWS Region 2 and NPS Intermountain tracking as the next-largest customers. This narrow concentration in DOI agencies reflects Borderlands Restoration Network's operational focus on public-lands restoration in the Southwest.

Recent activity shows two awards in the next twenty-four months facing recompete or completion. The vendor acts as a prime on 14 of 17 total awards (82%) and as a sub-recipient on three grant sub-awards, including milkweed seed amplification and monarch habitat connectivity work sub-awarded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (January 2024) and San Pedro Riparian restoration work sub-awarded by the Bureau of Land Management Foundation (October 2024). Combined potential value across all awards totals $145 thousand, though combined dollars obligated reach $2 million, indicating substantial task orders or modifications flowing against lower contract ceilings.