Hello everyone,
For several years I have been following a reforestation program called Eden. They are planting trees for 10 cents a tree and are planting right now around 35 million trees per year.
They already have programs in Ethiopia, Haiti and Madagascar and Nepal. The program works by hiring very poor villagers to plant trees. This gives them a small job so they can have a decent life.
They have planted so far 95 million trees. The number of trees they are planting increases exponentially ( it doubles every 2-3 years ). They expect to be able to plant 100 million trees per year relatively rapidly and to start new projects in more countries. The ultimate goal is to replant a lot of forest in all poor countries relatively rapidly.
Not only does replanting forests help regenrate ecosystems, but it also absorbs a lot of carbon at low cost. Their program also sells carbon credits for companies willing to offset their carbon footprint.
Please have a look at their website:
http://www.edenprojects.org/
In this video you can learn more about the project:
10 cents per tree is an extremely cost effective way of planting trees, regenerating forests, creating jobs for very poor people, and reducing our carbon footprint.
If you are interested, you can make a donation and spread the word.
I am personally not what you would call a tree hugger, but I know that ecological problems, in particular with global warming are very serious. Usually I don’t like ecologist NGOs because I feel they are too politicized. But nevertheless, we have to take care of our planet if we want to avoid an environmental collapse.
This program is very effective, they are not embroiled in politics etc…, so it is a good way for the average person to try and make a difference.
If we get together we can reforest many parts of the planet. So let’s act!
Thank you for your time,
Nic.
By: Hotshot - 4th May 2015 at 07:33
They are planting various species of native trees. They start with fast growing trees to create a canope, then plant smaller trees below.
By: Meddle - 3rd May 2015 at 21:29
Just to be pedantic, what species of trees are the Eden program planting? Are they native species to the countries themselves? I only say this because I’m not a big fan of the swathes of Sitka Spruces planted in regular rectangular stands across much of Scotland. Such plantations can be environmentally ruinous depending on your interpretation of ‘natural’. Of course, tourists think vast stands of evenly and densely planted coniferous woodland is the sort of landscape everybody from William Wallace to the ancient Pictish folk tramped around in so perhaps all is not lost!
By: Hotshot - 3rd May 2015 at 18:26
Hi John.
I heard about Britain having very little forest left. This is pretty sad but with your very high population density I guess it would be hard to increase the forests significantly.
In France we still have a significant amount of forest left, fortunately, but I don’t know the exact the percentage.
We won’t enter in an endless discussion about global warming, but anyways this Eden program is a big success. In the last 6 months they have planted 17 million trees.
Hiring very poor people to plant trees is a simple and effective idea. And their program has little overhead.
I said in my first post that NGOs are often politicized, but it is true that many are still good. In the US for instance they have the Nature Conservancy which has a good reputation.
By: John Green - 3rd May 2015 at 18:01
A first rate idea and one that most should support. In this country, we’ve lost most of our tree cover unlike Italy with a ‘tree cover’ of around 70%, ours – from memory – is about 12%.
In Britain we have an admirable organisation called the Woodland Trust of which I’m a member. The remit of the Trust is to plant trees, pure and simple. If I had a shred of belief in the existence of global warming other than that caused by the cyclical and natural processes from time immemorial, I would attribute it to the increasing absence of tree cover around the world.
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May 3, 2015 at 4:17 pm