We’ve set ourselves the challenge of planting ONE MILLION TREES worldwide in five years!
We’re almost at the end of the second year of this exciting challenge and thanks to your support and the incredibly hard work of our tree planting partners- an amazing 393,755 trees have been planted! One tree can absorb as much as 48 pounds of carbon dioxide per year. That means the trees you helped plant could absorb over 18 million pounds of CO2!
While it’s true, there are still plenty of negative environmental stats to report, today, we’re taking the time to look at how our tree-planting partners are transforming people’s lives, across the world, from the (tree-) roots up!
The Khasi people are forest-dependent and their culture has many ties to their natural surroundings but in recent times economic hardship has put a lot of pressure on their beloved trees. We Forest has been supporting the community to regenerate their forests since 2016 and has transformed the local landscape.
Discover what the forest means to the Khasi people and how they’re fighting to preserve it
We Forest works alongside local communities to reduce the pressures on the forest by empowering them with a number of livelihood initiatives. One such program is providing partially subsidised fuel-efficient cookers to 5,000 households in the area. Not only has this reduced tree felling for firewood but it has also improved forest and family health.
Meet Medalin, a 32 year-old labourer and mother of four living in the Khasi Hills. In the past, her family used up more than 1800 kg of firewood for cooking every year. In addition to felling trees, her family’s dependence on firewood added more than 200 euros equivalent to their annual expenses. Thanks to a 40% subsidy from WeForest, Medalin was able to afford an LPG connection. Now she uses gas for both cooking and heating for a fraction of the cost, protecting her family from health-damaging smoke and protecting the forests of the Khasi Hills.
Arbor Day Foundation, Mississippi River Valley, USA
We plant 3 trees with the Arbor Day Foundation for every Tree Tent sold in our Bend store. They're currently focused on planting native tree species in the Mississippi River Valley region. This area is one of the most important wetland resources on the North American continent. It was originally covered with 25 million acres of forestland, today less than 5 million acres of this precious woodland remains! This has resulted in a decline in wildlife, a loss of natural flood control, a decrease in water quality, and an increasing dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Arbor Day Foundation’s reforestation efforts will improve water quality by filtering out pollutants in the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico and allow these lands to flourish once more.
Madagascar is a vibrant nation, rich in biodiversity- over 200,000 species of its plants and animals don’t exist anywhere else in the world! However, over the past 50 years, more than 90% of Madagascar’s original forests have been destroyed. This has deprived the Malagasy people of their livelihoods, displaced entire animal species and destabilised the coastline, leaving the bare earth to wash away into the sea.
A major driving force behind the deforestation was extreme poverty. So, Eden Reforestation Projects took an innovative approach to tackle this problem. They have been employing villagers to plant trees since 2007. Thanks to their efforts 191,296,596 trees have been planted and 1,912,966 workdays created
Check out their video below to see how Madagascan farmers have rebuilt the country’s precious mangrove forests while lifting themselves out of poverty.
