TREES provides technical assistance with the help of mechanical, forestry and agricultural engineers and training in their signature methodology, which they call the Forest Garden Approach. Farmers who join their training program - whether through one of their field offices or online via their Forest Garden Training Center[2] - receive instruction on planting trees on their own farms and integrating them into regenerative agricultural systems for increased farm productivity, sustainability, and food security.[3]
Since their founding in 1989, TREES claims to have planted over 260 million trees with more than 25,000 farmers around the world.[4] In June 2021, they announced their intention to plant one billion trees as part of global reforestation efforts led by the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.[5]
Overview
Trees for the Future is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose mission is to end poverty and hunger by training farmers in regenerative agriculture, through what they call the Forest Garden Approach.
Locations
Over their 30+ year history, they have worked in more than 50 countries around the world, in Haiti, Latin America, South America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. In 2014, they focused their work on select African countries, where the climatic and economic challenges were the most pressing, and they felt they could make the greatest impact.[6]
Trees for the Future divides their work into three categories: Expansion, Collaboration and Replication.[6]
Expansion – Through their Forest Garden Training Program, TREES staff work with farmer groups to establish Forest Gardens over a four-year period. There are typically 150–300 farmers in these projects.
Collaboration – Trees for the Future works with local organizations and community groups who are already doing great work in the region but could benefit from agroforestry training. They also work together with Temu.
Replication – Once farmers go through the Forest Garden program, they can "Plant it Forward" and train neighboring farmers in a condensed version of the program.[6]
The Forest Garden Approach (FGA)
Through their 4-year training program, farmers plant thousands of trees that protect the land and bring nutrients back to the soil. Farmers are taught to plant trees in a way that optimizes land use, eliminates the need for chemical pesticides and fertilizers, and reserves water and sequesters carbon, what they call the Forest Garden.[7]
The Forest Garden provides farmers with diverse, nutritious crops that they can feed their families and sell on the market all year round. Forest Garden farmers increase their access to food and increase their income, even in the first year, all while improving the environment.[7]
Forest Gardens are, on average, 1 acre in size. One farmer, or farming family, cares for each Forest Garden on their own land. The average Forest Garden has 2,500 trees, most of which are planted in the first or second year along the Forest Garden's perimeter, which Trees for the Future calls the "Living Fence". In the third and fourth years, the remaining trees are strategically placed where it will best benefit the farmer's Forest Garden. On average, a Forest Garden offsets 144.64 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per acre over 20 years.[8]
Collaborative Partnerships
Trees for the Future works closely with Futures Agribusiness (FAGRIB) in Chad and Cameroon to teach farmers the Forest Garden Approach.[9]
In Gambia, TREES works with Gambia Rising to provide access to education and water, as well as income and nutrition opportunities through the Forest Garden Approach.
Trees for the Future works with The Great Green Wall in Senegal and Mali, supporting their initiative to bring life back to Africa's degraded landscapes whilst providing food security, jobs and security for families throughout the Sub-Saharan region.[9]
Goal 15: Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.
Food Security + Nutrition
Goal 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.
Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all ages
Goal 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.
Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries
Goal 17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development[10]
History
Trees for the Future, originally called The New Forests Project, was incorporated as a 50(c)(3) nonprofit in 1989 by their founder Dave Deppner.
In June 1993, Trees for the Future was invited to join the White House panel on Global Climate Change, where they continued to serve through 2000.
In response to Hurricane Mitch in November 1998, TREES began planting trees in Honduras and later expanded across Central America. By December 2003, they had planted 30 million trees globally.
In 2005, Trees for the Future established the world's first long-distance training program which reached over 2,000 trainees in four years.[10]
In February 2010, the Maryland House of Delegates recognized TREES for two decades of reforestation leadership and the planting of 65 million trees.
On September 10, 2011, TREES' Executive Director Dave Deppner died and was replaced by his friend and colleague, John Leary.[11]
In December 2014, TREES reached 100 million trees planted.
In 2015, TREES streamlined its approach, ending their active projects around the world so that they could focus on implementing the Forest Garden Approach in Sub-Saharan Africa, starting with Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, Cameroon and Kenya. They also announced a new strategic goal, to plant 500 million trees by 2025.[12]
In April 2017, Executive Director John Leary published One Shot: Trees as Our Last Chance for Survival. In September of that year, One Shot received the Nautilus Award.
In September 2017, TREES launched the Forest Garden Training Center to provide an online platform for Forest Garden practitioners around the world.[10]
In mid-2020, TREES reached 200 million trees planted around the world.[13]
In 2021, TREES announced a 2030 goal to plant one billion trees with smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. This new goal came with the June 5th launch of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, a global effort to spur global restoration efforts between 2021 and 2030. As an official implementing partner of the UN Decade, TREES will focus on farmland restoration, aiming to restore degraded soil, increase tree cover, support biodiversity, capture carbon and increase both food access and income security through agroforestry and sustainable tree planting.
In 2022, they announced that they'd be expanding their Executive Team. John Leary stepped into the newly established role of Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) in an effort to reach the organization's goal of planting one billion trees by 2030. Tim McLellan, a leader in sustainability and community development, was selected to fill the role of Interim Chief Executive Officer. A search committee, chaired by Board Member Shannon Hawkins, will lead the recruitment of a permanent CEO.[14]
On April 1, 2022, Trees for the Future announces their new look and logo in honor of Earth Month.[15]
As of 2021, TREES claims to have planted 316 million trees around the world.[16] In 2023, they planted 38 million trees and will continue to scale up over the next decade their training program, collaborative partnerships, and growing network of farmers and agroforestry experts.[17]
The cocoa bean, also known simply as cocoa or cacao, is the dried and fully fermented seed of Theobroma cacao, the cacao tree, from which cocoa solids and cocoa butter can be extracted. Cacao trees are native to the Amazon rainforest. They are the basis of chocolate and Mesoamerican foods including tejate, an indigenous Mexican drink.
Sustainable agriculture is farming in sustainable ways meeting society's present food and textile needs, without compromising the ability for current or future generations to meet their needs. It can be based on an understanding of ecosystem services. There are many methods to increase the sustainability of agriculture. When developing agriculture within sustainable food systems, it is important to develop flexible business processes and farming practices. Agriculture has an enormous environmental footprint, playing a significant role in causing climate change, water scarcity, water pollution, land degradation, deforestation and other processes; it is simultaneously causing environmental changes and being impacted by these changes. Sustainable agriculture consists of environment friendly methods of farming that allow the production of crops or livestock without causing damage to human or natural systems. It involves preventing adverse effects on soil, water, biodiversity, and surrounding or downstream resources, as well as to those working or living on the farm or in neighboring areas. Elements of sustainable agriculture can include permaculture, agroforestry, mixed farming, multiple cropping, and crop rotation.
The Green Belt Movement (GBM) is an indigenous grassroots organization in Kenya that empowers women through the planting of trees. It is one of the most effective and well-known grassroots organisations addressing the problem of global deforestation. Professor Wangari Maathai established the organization in 1977 under the auspices of the National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK). GBM's successes in forest conservation, education, and women's economic empowerment have gained the organisation worldwide acclaim. It is also noted for its advocacy of human rights, democratisation of access to public lands, and environmental justice issues such as the role of women's traditional ecological knowledge in addressing environmental degradation and desertification.
CGIAR is a global partnership that unites international organizations engaged in research about food security. CGIAR research aims to reduce rural poverty, increase food security, improve human health and nutrition, and sustainable management of natural resources.
Agroforestry is a land use management system that integrates trees with crops or pasture. It combines agricultural and forestry technologies. As a polyculture system, an agroforestry system can produce timber and wood products, fruits, nuts, other edible plant products, edible mushrooms, medicinal plants, ornamental plants, animals and animal products, and other products from both domesticated and wild species.
The International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology is an international scientific research institute, headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya that works towards improving lives and livelihoods of people in Africa.
The Great Green Wall or Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel is a project adopted by the African Union in 2007, initially conceived as a way to combat desertification in the Sahel region and hold back expansion of the Sahara desert, by planting a wall of trees stretching across the entire Sahel from Djibouti, Djibouti to Dakar, Senegal. The original dimensions of the "wall" were to be 15 km wide and 7,775 km long, but the program expanded to encompass nations in both northern and western Africa. The concept evolved into promoting water harvesting techniques, greenery protection and improving indigenous land use techniques, aimed at creating a mosaic of green and productive landscapes across North Africa. Later it adopted the view that desert boundaries change based on rainfall variations.
One Acre Fund is a social enterprise that supplies smallholder farmers in East Africa with asset-based financing and agriculture training services to reduce hunger and poverty. Headquartered in Kakamega, Kenya, the organization works with farmers in rural villages throughout Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Nigeria, Zambia, and Ethiopia.
Farm Radio International, or Radios Rurales Internationales, is a Canadian non-profit organization that was founded in 1979 by CBC Radio broadcaster George Atkins. The organization is headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario and works with radio broadcasters to improve food security and agricultural methods for small-scale farmers and rural communities in African countries.
Tree Aid is an international development non-governmental organisation which focuses on working with people in the Sahel region in Africa to tackle poverty and the effects of climate change by growing trees, improving people's incomes, and restoring and protecting land. It is a registered charity in the UK. Tree Aid has offices in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in Mali, in Ethiopia, in Ghana, and in Bristol, United Kingdom. It currently has programmes running in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali and Niger. Areas of Tree Aid's work include forest governance, natural resource management, food security and nutrition, and enterprise development. Tree Aid reported in their annual impact report 2019/20, that since 1987 it had grown 22 million trees, worked with 1.8 million people, and supported 36,350 people in enterprise groups.
Plant With Purpose is a Christian nonprofit organization that works in developing countries around the world with the goal of improving the quality of the lives of people living in extreme rural poverty. Plant With Purpose uses a transformational development approach that brings together environmental restoration, economic empowerment, and spiritual renewal. Plant With Purpose currently works in more than 1,100 communities in eight countries across Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.
Most of Kenya's electricity is generated by renewable energy sources. Access to reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy is one of the 17 main goals of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Development of the energy sector is also critical to help Kenya achieve the goals in Kenya Vision 2030 to become a newly industrializing, middle-income country. With an installed power capacity of 2,819 MW, Kenya currently generates 826 MW hydroelectric power, 828 geothermal power, 749 MW thermal power, 331 MW wind power, and the rest from solar and biomass sources. Kenya is the largest geothermal energy producer in Africa and also has the largest wind farm on the continent. In March 2011, Kenya opened Africa's first carbon exchange to promote investments in renewable energy projects. Kenya has also been selected as a pilot country under the Scaling-Up Renewable Energy Programmes in Low Income Countries Programme to increase deployment of renewable energy solutions in low-income countries. Despite significant strides in renewable energy development, about a quarter of the Kenyan population still lacks access to electricity, necessitating policy changes to diversify the energy generation mix and promote public-private partnerships for financing renewable energy projects.
Eden Reforestation Projects (Eden) is a nonprofit NGO that works in developing countries to rebuild natural landscapes destroyed by deforestation. Eden works directly with communities experiencing extreme poverty resulting from the deforestation and destruction of the land that sustains them. The organization employs thousands of local community members and provides them with the education and tools necessary to plant, grow, and protect to maturity, millions of trees each year. Eden currently plants approximately 15 million trees a month, and in 2020 reached over 423 million trees planted of which over 225 million are mangrove trees.
A community orchard is a collection of fruit trees shared by communities and growing in publicly accessible areas such as public greenspaces, parks, schools, churchyards, allotments or, in the US, abandoned lots. Such orchards are a shared resource and not managed for personal or business profit. Income may be generated to sustain the orchard as a charity, community interest company, or other non-profit structure. What they have in common is that they are cared for by a community of people.
Paul Yeboah was an educator, farmer, permaculturist, community developer, and social entrepreneur. Yeboah founded and coordinated the Ghana Permaculture Institute and Network in Techiman, Ghana, West Africa. It is located in the Brong-Ahafo Region of Ghana. The purpose of the Institute is to build and maintain a stable food system, to take care of the local ecosystems, and to improve the quality of life in the rural areas. The GPN trains students and community in sustainable ecological farming techniques. They support projects throughout Ghana; women groups, micro-finance projects; teach growing moringa; mushroom production; alley cropping, food forests development and Agroforestry.
Wanjira Mathai is a Kenyan environmentalist and activist. She is Managing Director for Africa and Global Partnerships at the World Resources Institute, based in Nairobi, Kenya. In this role, she takes on global issues including deforestation and energy access. She was selected as one of the 100 Most Influential Africans by New African magazine in 2018 for her role serving as the senior advisor at the World Resources Institute, as well as for her campaign to plant more than 30 million trees through her work at the Green Belt Movement.
Remineralize the Earth (RTE) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Northampton, Massachusetts, and founded in 1995 by Joanna Campe. The organization’s mission is to "promote the use of natural land and sea-based minerals to restore soils and forests, produce more nutritious food, and remove excess CO2 from the atmosphere”. RTE’s vision is to overcome desertification, increase food security by increasing the yields and nutritional values of food grown in healthy soils, and stabilize the climate by amending soils and forests across the globe with readily available and finely ground silicate rock dust and sea minerals.
Treedom is a platform that allows anyone to plant trees in different countries of the world. Treedom also allows the 'owner's of the planted trees to receive images of the trees that have just been planted along with its GPS coordinates and updates from the project it is part of.
Regenerative cacao is defined as cacao that is produced on a farm that employs regenerative agriculture and agroforestry methods. It is most closely associated with the Ecuadorian chocolate company To’ak, the organic food supplier Navitas, the rainforest conservation organization TMA, and the social-agricultural enterprise Terra Genesis. Cacao is the raw material that is used to produce chocolate.
National Tree Growing Day is a public holiday in Kenya. It was inaugurated on November 13, 2023 by Interior Cabinet Secretary, Kithure Kindiki, in accordance with a gazette notice issued on November 6, 2023. This announcement made Kenya the first and only nation to declare a public holiday for this purpose.
References
↑ "About Us". Trees for the Future. Retrieved 2022-05-03.
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