REFORESTATION
Community-based reforestation is fueled by trusting relationships between people committed to restoring their watersheds and leaving the planet healthier than they found it for future generations.
The world's forests are being consumed rapidly. Trees are cut down for paper and wood products, for cooking fuel, to clear land for development, and to expand farming areas. The land left behind is stripped not only of its trees, but the plants, animals, and insects that lived in that ecosystem as well. With no plant roots to hold it in place, valuable soil washes away with every rainfall and ends up in the rivers and streams upon which people depend for their water supply. In extreme cases, hundreds or thousands of people lose their homes or perish in landslides when deforested slopes become unstable.
Forests also play an important part in regulating global climate. Trees remove carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere, while cycling oxygen back into it. When trees are cut down, however, the CO2 is released again. It is estimated that up to 25% of the total amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere every year is released from trees being cut and burned. It's clear that protecting the world's forests is an important part of solving the global climate change problem.
Every tree planted represents greater biodiversity, improved habitat, healthier soils, cleaner water, nutritious foods, and communities equipped to own their future.
Our approach to reforestation involves more than just protecting forests and planting trees. We have created successful community-led reforestation projects in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, in addition to American Indian reservations in the United States.
Our reforestation programs focus on establishing and maintaining tree nurseries, educating communities about the positive environmental impacts of reforestation, and strengthening economic development, both through conservation and the responsible management of forest resources. We work with existing local groups, schools, and communities in extremely low-income rural and periurban areas with local experts that provide guidance on how to plant, graft, and maintain their trees.
Community tree nurseries in Central America produce tree seedlings and rural communities plant them in deforested areas, on family farms, and around their homes. A diverse range of tree species, many of which are native to the areas we work, are planted. Some of these trees will be used for fencing, timber, fodder, or a sustainable source of firewood, while others like fruit trees will produce value for the duration of the trees' life, sequestering carbon, feeding people and creating healthy soils.
Tree Nurseries
Our community tree nurseries are at the heart of our reforestation program because they give us a place to safely grow all of our tree species and provide meaningful employment to local people.
We are proud to not only produce hundreds of thousands of trees every year, we are also very proud to offer local people jobs that are sustainable, empowering, and lead to a greater quality of life for both themselves and their families.
