Fall 2010 Newsletter

Johnny Ipil-Seed News Vol. XVIII, No. 2

Fall 2010 Vol. XVIII, No. 2The quarterly newsletter of Trees for the Future

Central America Program Coordinator Joshua Bogart and his team have been working hard to create part-nerships with Honduran coffee organizations and other area groups dedicated to sustainable land management practices. Via networking and word of mouth, such symbiotic relationships enable TREES work to greatly expand throughout the mountainous Honduran terrain. “This [area] will be used to show coffee farmers what can be done,” said Joshua in an interview filmed on a recently established IHCAFE demonstration plot. “So we're talking that there will probably be a thousand, two thousand people come through this every year to learn how to manage their own farms,” he said. Traditional subsistence farming and years of cattle grazing have left many steep hillsides vulnerable to erosion, have compromised water supplies, and have forced rural families to abandon their land for life in city slums. However, through your generous support, and the dedi-cated work of local TREES technicians, opportunities exist for those who wish to make the switch to sustainable agroforest-ry practices. This year, five million trees were distributed throughout the country. Dave Deppner, and TREES Media Intern, Peter Kell, recently

accompanied Joshua and TREES local extension tech-nician, Geraldo Santos, on an evaluation tour of the work being done. They rode in a truck, far up into the Merendón Cordillera Mountains, through swollen riv-ers, and up a rutted, undeveloped road to view agrofor-estry sites established through TREES recent partner-ship with Fundación Merendón, an NGO whose goal is to improve the livelihoods of residents of the Merendón Cordillera, while protecting the local environment. Their current program is working to plant trees on the many strips of land degraded by cattle raising,and help-ing to improve local livelihoods by assisting farmers to make the switch from coffee to organic cacao—which brings a higher market price, and grows better in the region. Atop the ridge, the group visited several rural family farms and the Buena Vista Nursery, which dis-tributes seedlings in the area.

Honduras - Things Get Done When Concerned Groups Work Together

TREES Central America Coordinator Joshua Bogart, training coffee farmers at an agroforestry workshop in El Zapote, Honduras

Continued on page 4


Is it just my imagina-tion or are we, as a soci-ety, falling in love with giant corporations? We try to find our way out of a recession by giving public funding on a mas-sive scale to financial gi-ants because they claim they are "too big to fail.” It takes the world's big-gest environmental di-saster since Kilimanjaro for us to learn that 30% of our domestic oil produc-tion comes from the Gulf of Mexico, much of it from deepwater drilling; showing how far we've come down the road toward our own extinction. Since January 12th I've been putting in some twenty hours each week on our program in Haiti. Rural Haiti, that is: the root of the problem by our lights, the part of Haiti that has been steadfastly kept out of the development process for the past 200 years, the part of Haiti that has dragged that country into an economic, as well as an environmental abyss. Your TREES organization does have some significant achievements to report. We're now at work in more than 20 communities and more are asking to join in. We're well on our way to helping people in Haiti plant more than 1,500,000 trees. That may not seem like much growth over 2009 when we planted about 1,200,000 trees but when you consider the situation eight months ago, when the earthquake struck, when the entire coun-try was flat on its back, I'd say your team there has made tremendous progress. On that day, January 12, every member of your team had at least one family member dead or missing. The training center we had established in Leveque, over 40 miles from the epicenter of the quake, looked like a jig-saw puzzle. There were no communications, no roads, no phones, no food and little water that was drinkable. Mahlou Herman of our Board, who was then a volun-teer nurse in Port-au-Prince, petite to begin with, went down two dress sizes in just two weeks there. So this is in no way a criticism of the relief assistance that was so desperately needed and has been so gener-

The Johnny Ipil-Seed News is a quarterly newsletter of TREES FOR THE FUTURE, Inc., a tax-exempt nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people of the world’s poorest communities to begin environmentally beneficial, self-help projects. This newsletter is printed using wind energy on recycled pa-per with soy-based ink and is sent to all supporting members to inform them of recent events, plans, financial matters and how their support is helping people.

BOARD OF DIRECTORSDr. John R. Moore - Chairman, Dr. Peter Falk - Vice Chair-man, Mr. Oscar V. Gruspe - Finance Officer, Dave Deppner - President, Mr. Bedru Sultan, Ms. Marilou Herman, Mrs. Linda Katz, Mr. Franz Stuppard, Mr. John Leary - Members, R. Grace Deppner - Recording Secretary (non-voting)

ADVISORY COUNCILDr. Mizani Kristos - West African Development, Dr. James Brewbaker - University of Hawaii, Mr. William Campbell - Sea-soned Energy, Mr. Steve McCrea - Global Climate Change, FL, Dr. Malcolm Novins - George Mason University, Dr. Noel Viet-meyer - The Vetiver Institute, Mr. Sean Griffin - Forestry & GIS Specialist

STAFFDave Deppner - Founder, Executive Director

R. Grace Deppner - Founder, Associate DirectorJeffrey Manuel - Membership Services

Gorav Seth - Head of International ProgramsJosh Bogart - Central America Coordinator

Ethan Budiansky - Africa and Caribbean Program OfficerJeff Follett - South America Program Officer

Francis Deppner - Southeast Asia CoordinatorDavid Tye - East Africa Coordinator

Gabe Buttram - Ethiopia Program CoordinatorLeandro Monteiro - Business Partnerships Coordinator

Cathie Bukowski - Training Program Coordinator

FIELD STAFFLouis Nkembi - Cameroon; Gerardo Santos Matta, Guillermo Valle - Honduras; Sagapala Gangisetty, Manoj Bhatt - India, Donal Perez - Nicaragua; Danny Zabala - Philippines; Omar Ndao - Senegal; Kay Howe, Abdul Chamid - Indonesia; Fer-nanda Peixoto - Brazil; Paulino Damiano Mugendi - Kenya; Mathius Lukwago - Uganda; Karamba Diakhaby - Senegal;

Lovans Owusu-Takyi -Ghana; Robin Achah- Cameroon; Timote Georges - Haiti; Mohamed Traore - Mali; Merkebu

Garedew - Ethiopia; Juan Alberto - Colombia

To receive this newsletter or for more information, contact:TREES FOR THE FUTURE

The Loret Miller Ruppe Center for Sustainable DevelopmentP.O. Box 7027, Silver Spring, MD 20907

Toll Free: 1-800-643-0001: Ph: 301-565-0630 [email protected]

WWW.PLANT-TREES.ORG

Continued on page 3

Opinion: How About Investing in People?


Opinion (continued from page 2)

ously continued to this time. But relief is given to save lives and property in the event of a disaster. Develop-ment, on the other hand, is intended to give those lives a future by addressing the problems that would otherwise lead to even more disasters. Our program leader, Timote Georges and his team came through that disaster and all that followed. They built a staff of eight trained and dedicated technicians, now with two training centers already in operation. His program also provided seeds of corn, squash and veg-etables, along with hammers, wheelbarrows and other tools because hungry people can't plant trees, especially if they don't have any shovels. All this has been pos-sible because you, along with several concerned foun-dations and businesses, made it happen. Haiti's struggle has continued over seven months now, as a major news story. Lately, the news has been that, of those hundreds of millions of dollars of devel-opment aid promised by the international community, less than 5% has actually arrived in Haiti. Meanwhile TREES, and the brave, resilient people we try to assist, have been increasingly in the news, most recently (July 26) a two page article in Newsweek Magazine. The public reaction to this work has been largely favorable and has gained much support for all of your programs.

We think the reason for this is that, while the interna-tional donor community continues to "study the situa-tion,” your organization has been in the field, at work with the people of these long-ignored communities to make things better. We take two lessons away from this. The first is that the majority of these agencies of various governments,

and the major donors they support, are so focused on their own situation that they haven't taken the time to go out there and see how the people of Rural Haiti view things. If they went, they might be impressed by the dreams of people there. Dreams which, with their help, could by now have become reality. We have also learned that these mega-buck programs continue to exhibit a certain fascination with big time operators; with people and organizations who already enjoy the best lands, the ready financing, the markets - local and international, the infrastructure and technol-ogy to assure their success, with or without outside as-sistance. What possible reason would there be for that group to make efforts toward environmental restora-tion? Other than changes in the temperature, it doesn't affect them. On the other hand, poor people - people in the communities we assist - well understand that if they don't bring trees back to their denuded uplands, they have no hope of continuing to survive on those lands. To us at TREES, that's a tragedy that must be avoided, so on those barren hills is where you'll find TREES at work. Please help us get to even more of these com-munities, in Haiti and around the world while there is still time.Every morning, Mrs. Jones feeds her children soup

made from Moringa leaves (behind) to improve their nutrition.

"Protecting the environment is

protecting people and people's dreams"

- Timote GeorgesTREES Haiti Coordinator


Things Get Done, Honduras (continued from page 1)

Continued, page 5

Overgrazing and slash-and-burn agriculture have severely denuded large areas of the Merendon, causing

poverty, erosion, and a growing a water shortage.

The memorandum of agreement with IHCAFE being signed by TREES founder, Dave Deppner.

In October 2009, Trees for the Future partnered with Instituto Hondureño Del Café (IHCAFE), Hon-duras' national coffee production institution. Togeth-er, TREES and IHCAFE are designing agroforestry demonstration plots which show coffee farmers what is possible through integrating trees into their fields. The partnership promotes an outreach program to aid interested farmers with seeds and training. Coffee is naturally an understory species, and grows well within the shade provided by reforestation. Thus far, approxi-mately 10,000 trees have been planed in demonstration plots on different properties of IHCAFE, and 1.7 mil-lion trees on the properties of individual farmers. The majority of these are planted on the land of small scale farmers who own 10 acres or less. On day three of the site visits, the group drove up to the headquarters of the watershed protection depart-ment, which has an on-site nursery for tree distribu-tion. Empresa Nacional De Energia Eléctrica (ENEE), the Honduran national electric company, has recently signed a memorandum of understanding with TREES and is receiving support to restore and protect the ap-proximately 89,000 square kilometers of watershed which surround the Francisco Morazan Reservoir. The reservoir, which provides 32% of Honduras' electric-ity, has been filling with silt because of erosion caused by deforestation. Emphasis includes reforesting old pasture sites, and working with the local population to shift from slash-and-burn agriculture to more sustain-able forms, such as agroforestry. To showcase the need for trees in the area, ENEE Watershed protection tech-

nician, Ernesto Valesquez, took the group on a boat tour of the lake. From there, they viewed many areas lacking tree cover, as well as TREES supported proj-ects located high on the surrounding mountains. The Honduran Government has the goal of planting two and a half million trees this year. Nearly half of these seeds were provided by Trees for the Future, and were planted in the Southern portions of the Depart-ment of Fransisco Morazan, which has suffered heavy deforestation in the past. Your support has also enabled the planting of two and a half million trees in Eastern Honduras through COMIXPLAN, Cooperativa Mixta de Planes, a coffee cooperative working in the border region between Hon-duras and Nicaragua, in the municipalities of Danli, Trojes, El Paraiso, and Planes. COMIXPLAN has part-nered with these municipal governments and other co-operatives to increase coffee production, increase water production from local watersheds, and restore the land productivity. In an ongoing partnership, TREES has been working with Rene Santos Aguilar and his organization, Cen-tro de Ensenanza y Agricultura Sostenible (CEASO), to design projects, and educate people about sustain-able practices. Such technologies include extremely ef-ficient wood burning stoves, cut-and-carry animal rear-ing systems, bio-gas digesters which convert manure into natural gas, sustainable firewood plots, and forest gardens which maximize the production potential per piece of land. For nearly three years, TREES has partnered with Al-


dea Global, a NGO which promotes sustainable devel-opment in various areas of Honduras, but most strong-ly in the area of Cerro Azul Meambar National Park. Along the way, our team visited the Guillermo Morena shade grown coffee plantation which lies beneath a dense canopy of various multi-purpose fast growing trees provided by Trees for the Future. This area pro-vides habitat for birds and other wildlife, and the coffee trees were loaded with berries, ensuring support for the local economy. Day four involved another steep and rugged drive, this time up into the Montecillos Range, where Joshua led a section of an agroforestry training workshop. All the while he was surrounded by inquisitive farmers eager to learn how to best manage the trees they have planted in their fields. The five million trees planted in 2010 have restored thousands of acres of formerly denuded land, and have enabled countless families to increase their income. However, the value of reforested hillsides, fields, and backyards goes beyond environmental benefits and economic calculations, to include what trees do to lift

the human spirit, to provide a sense of pleasantness, beauty, pride, and renewal. The staff at Trees for the Future, and all of our dedicated partners thank you for your concern, as the work we do would not be possible without your support!

The Honduran electric company has received seeds from TREES to reforest areas within the Francisco

Morazan Reservoir Watershed.

Things Get Done, Honduras

Last month we updated TREES project points on Google Earth. We now have over 350 points on Google Earth, with pictures, descriptions, and even videos from our projects. From a small start in 2007, we have developed a compelling system to showcase our work. It is very easy- download our KML file from the project page of our website, and then open it up in Google Earth on your computer. It is a great way to see our work, from the big picture down to the village. Each of the green trees expands to show pictures and descriptions of the work. Try it out for yourself by going to the projects page on our website, and clicking on the link for gps monitoring.

Google Earth screenshots from our work in East Africa (left) and Honduras (right). Each of these points has pic-tures and descriptions of our projects and the people and communities they are helping.

Over 350 of TREES Project Sites Now on Google Earth


As many of our readers know, Trees for the Future is always willing to provide assistance to individuals and groups in our project areas who are interested in planting trees, no mat-ter what their background may be. A great ex-ample of this willingness over the past month comes from Ethiopia, where TREES and their partner Greener Ethiopia began a partnership with the Wolkite Correction Center. In July and into early August, thirty inmates from the correction center planted 25,000 seedlings in and around their facility. These seedlings will grow to provide fruit for the benefit of the prisoners living inside, and will also help to rehabilitate four hectares of severely de-graded land just outside of their grounds. Everyone involved in the planting, includ-ing the center’s staff and guards, enjoyed get-ting out to plant the trees. We are now discuss-ing plans for the coming year to work with the inmates to start a small seedling nursery, where they can grow seedlings of their choice to plant in and around their compound. If they decide to, and they certainly seem interested, TREES and GE would provide them training on nursery management and agroforestry techniques that they can use to start a garden. Beyond providing the inmates with a greater diversity of fruits and vegetables than they would normally receive, this would also give them meaningful work to do, and a reason to get outside and be active. It can also provide them with useful skills that might help them to engage in meaningful work for themselves and for their families once they return to their homes.

Prisoners Planting Trees in Ethiopia

Guards, in light uniforms, work alongside prisoners. The products these trees will soon produce will greatly improve the daily meals in the prison, while protecting nearby lands against uncontrolled

gully erosion.


The rains have begun in the areas where our projects are located in the Philippines. This is a great relief fol-lowing five months of severe droughts, as a result of El Niño. During this time, members of our partnering organization TREES Philippines worked hard to keep seedlings in the nurseries, and those already out-planted, watered. People also worked hard to build firebreaks, as many wildfires threatened their planting sites. Now that the rains have arrived, many members of TREES Philippines have created their own nurseries in order to increase the number of trees we will be able to plant this season. The problems with flooding that se-verely affected regions of Zambales province last year have opened villagers’ eyes to see how unable the de-nuded hillsides are of holding water. This has promoted a movement in several towns to create organizations of volunteers to plant trees both to alleviate the immediate threats of flooding and landslides, but also to help solve a growing concern amongst many Filipinos which is climate change. This concern is seen with changing weather patterns affecting agriculture production, and with the Philippines being an archipelago of more than 7,000 islands, rising sea levels, and decreases in marine life, which are very evident. Environmentally friendly activities are happening all over the Philippines, and now the military, political fig-ures and even celebrities are “going green.” This has created a youth culture that is more aware of the many environmental problems, and is now doing something about it. In our projects many schools are joining in to

learn more about how Trees for the Future is helping people to plant trees and the many benefits that trees provide to not only the people and the land, but to the earth as a whole. Local high schools and universities are assisting us with germination tests and space to cre-ate nurseries. Students gain a vested interest and assist with the out-planting and maintenance of the seedlings in the field. On August 2nd, a new batch of students came to the newly created training center in Loobunga to do re-search. They later assisted us to plant seedlings from two nurseries at the adjoining out-planting site. We plan to plant at least 200,000 seedlings of various species which they recommended based on their success with them in the past (growth and survival rates), and in-come generating potential (fruit and nut species). As this article is being written, Southeast Asia coor-dinator, Francis Deppner, is preparing to return to the Philippines to meet with four new groups interested in working with Trees for the Future to start reforestation and agroforestry projects in their respective areas, as they have heard how successful our current projects are. Trees for the Future was again chosen as the main beneficiary of the Global Mala, Philippines, an annual yoga event. Last year’s event was a success and pro-ceeds from the event were able to assist us in the plant-ing of 50,000 multi-purpose fast-growing trees on de-graded lands in the Philippines. We hope that this year, we will be able to plant thousands more!

Planting Season in the Philippines

Before and after: The steep hillsides of Zambales covered only lightly with cogan grass don't allow the heavy rains to soak in. Tree projects follow the contour lines, allowing the rains to replenish groundwater aquifers.


Gabe Buttram, our Ethiopia Program Coordinator, is doing a bang-up job but, this year, he really got stuck – in the mud, that is. Gabe has extensive experience in Africa but mostly in places where things are a lot drier. As the year began, when the people of three towns asked our help and his crew was looking for places to establish seedling nurseries, he never realized how wet things can get in Ethiopia’s highlands – nobody ever told them that the country was once called the “water tower of Africa” and for good reason. He found places to start large seedbed nurseries but far from the places where the trees would eventually be planted. People did a good job establishing the nurseries and the seedlings grew well. Plans were made for when the seedlings, tall now with long roots, would be out-planted as the seasonal rains arrived. Which they did. It rained, then it rained some more, then it became serious rain. The black soil soon became black soup. But Gabe was determined to get these seedlings, over a million of them, to the people who needed them (to keep the soil from washing away in the heavy rainy season). It was a tough situation because, if the seedlings were left in the nurseries, many of them would be lost and many more would be stuck there, useless, in plastic bags for most of the critical growing season. Gabe assembled all the transportation he could find, including a couple of pickup trucks, a huge tractor and

wagon and, just in case, a great many donkeys. The pickup trucks were the first to bury themselves deep in the mud. The tractor, which also includes the wagon full of about 5,000 seedlings, was close behind. After working so many days, in knee deep mud with rain pouring down, Gabe spent the night sleeping in the (fairly dry) cab of the tractor. The donkeys could carry loads of about 80 seedlings but didn’t fare much better in the slick mud. People of the three communities came and carried back as many as they possibly could, which turned out to be a tremen-dous number of seedlings. Eventually, all of these seedlings were moved to the various locations with only a small number lost. Gabe and his crew dried out. But the experience showed these communities that TREES is very serious about saving and restoring their fragile lands. That, along with the experience gained, will help in the years ahead. We are already planning for the year ahead which will empha-size developing village-based and backyard seedling nurseries We will need more technicians plus some trail bikes to get them to all these villages to meet peo-ple on their own lands. The tree seedlings will be grown a short distance from where they will be out-planted – with a lot less swimming in the mud. Livestock, especially because of over-grazing by hun-dreds of thousands of cattle, sheep and goats, are the reason the area annually becomes a quagmire. The grass is nibbled down to nothing by the end of the dry season. Without grass to protect the land, the rush ofwater carves great gullies that wash the “Red Gold of

The wagon had to be detached to pull the tractor out. Overnight, people had come to carry home the seedlings left on the wagon, showing how much people want this

project to succeed.

Out of wheels: Gabe Buttram, walking with some new friends to carry as many seedlings as possible to the

several participating communities.

Of Cows


Ethiopia” down to the lowlands of Somalia (where it is welcomed). There is nothing in the Ethiopian uplands to hold the rainfall long enough for it to sink in. Trees that once grew there prevented this in the past – and would do it again – if we plant them soon. We are telling livestock raisers of the area that their animals would be much happier and produce far more if the grass were carried to them instead of the other way around. And the animals would live longer: there are great numbers of hyenas prowling those fields at night, so why send your wife or children out to bring the cows to a protective shed when the animals could

instead have happily spent the day there in the shade, with plenty of forage and water? Not surprisingly, we find that some of the local cow-boys have figured this out themselves. Many of them are seeking seeds of improved forage grasses, and have already discovered that the manure they collect, along with leaf-fall from the tree, is rebuilding their crop-lands. We’re also telling them about deep-rooted legumi-nous trees that can protect the soils as well as provide a steady supply of high-protein, high-vitamin feed sup-plement to improve growth and production. That’s en-couraging many new groups to bring trees back to save these lands. It tells you our Ethiopia program means something especially important to these communities when virtu-ally every family member – mothers, fathers and chil-dren – drop what they’re doing and go out into brutal weather, working night and day to keep a disaster from happening. Through tremendous sacrifices they saved almost all the seedlings. At the Harmony Farms nurseries, the floodwaters were rushing down from the uplands as the last of the seedlings were carried away. People washed their hands and faces in the muddy water. Gabe had to wear the same damp clothes for over a week. Trees are vital to the future of peoples throughout the developing world. Help us reach even more of these threatened villages while there is still time.

The end of a hard week - moving over a million seed-lings over distances of several kilometers in a commu-nity-wide effort involving entire families. Next year the

nurseries will be much closer to the planting sites.

Fortunately, many of the tree species we plant allow us to use the barestem system. That way, one person is able

to carry over 100 seedlings.

and Mud

These fragile lands are so overgrazed by livestock that there is no protection left for the soils when the seasonal

rains arrive. Rivers are flooded with thick, red mud. Billions of tons of Ethiopia's topsoil are lost every rainy

season.


Catherine Bukowski, TREES Training Program Co-ordinator, visited projects in Ghana and Cameroon this June to provide on-site technical support and to assess the progress of the programs. TREES Ghana program expanded in 2009, when we brought on Lovans Owa-su-Takyi as the Ghana program coordinator. Lovans manages the Kumasi Institute of Tropical Agricul-ture (KITA), which is TREES main partner in Ghana. TREES Long Distance Agroforestry Training Manual was incorporated into the KITA student’s curriculum and many of the students received their TREES agro-forestry certificates after successfully completing the course. KITA students and graduates have helped ex-pand the program by starting community nurseries in their home communities, as well as in the communities they are assigned to for a year of National Service after graduation. Apart from KITA, Lovans has identified local NGOs and other communities in which to start projects. Al-though Ghana experienced an extended dry season this year, which caused some problems with maintaining the nurseries, communities were planting new seeds to replace the losses. Some trees planted last year have not been coppiced in order to provide a seed source for the community, as well as for sale. TREES is now buy-ing many of these seeds from the farmers to distribute throughout Ghana. TREES supports many Peace Corps volunteers dur-ing their service, and Lovans has been taking part in their pre-service training. He was also invited to be

part of the advisory committee that will be discussing upcoming changes in the Peace Corps program. Some highlights of the trip included participating in the May 2010 KITA graduation ceremony, welcom-ing the new Peace Corps volunteers, meeting with new community groups, visiting old projects and visiting the new Agroforestry Resource and Training Center be-ing established under the name of Professional Farm-er’s College (PROFACO), which aims to provide free agroforestry training to farmers and their families, and to offer a continuous supply of seeds for the species we use most in Ghana. Cameroon had also endured an extended dry season, but luckily the rains started the night of Catherine's arrival in Buea, in the Southwest Region. From the Southwest she traveled to areas surrounding Kumba, Bafang, Dschang and Bamenda, where she visited many successful agroforestry projects that are working to maintain soil fertility. She then traveled to Yaounde and met with the organization Rainforest Saver to dis-cuss collaborating to expand agroforestry projects into the South Region, near the Dja Reserve, and to start including the agroforestry species Inga edulis into their projects. While in Yaounde she meet with Peace Corps Cameroon’s new Country Director, LaHoma Smith Ro-mocki, PhD, MPH. Smith Romocki was enthusiastic about continuing to work with TREES. The meeting

Ghana and Cameroon Field Visit

Cameroon Country Program assistant Kingsly Neba standing next to Calliandra calothyrsus on a hillside

farm in Bakou.

Catherine Bukowski with a family and their nursery located in Moume, where they plan to establish alley

cropping during the next rotation of maize.


Peter Kell started with Trees for the Future in August, 2008, by volunteering in the Maryland office. He grew up in Texas, where his father enjoyed practicing backyard horticulture, and his mother was passionate about plant-ing and protecting native trees. From a young age Peter developed a love of nature, and while in high school be-gan considering a career in forestry. His dream of helping to reforest degraded lands con-tinued with him throughout his many years of snow-boarding in the American West. In August of 2008 he took a train from California to Maryland, with the intent

of becoming involved with TREES. Already possessing a science background, Pe-ter enrolled in media related classes—including journal-ism, video, and print de-sign—at Montgomery Col-lege. “I figure that I can only plant so many trees with my life,” he says, “but if I can inspire others to plant trees, then far

more will be planted than if I work alone.” He has since contributed to many projects coming from the TREES office. He plans to continue his study of agroforesty and environmental science, and to use his skills to help with field outreach and training.

Ghana and Cameroon Field Visitresulted in a memorandum of understanding, ensuring mutual support. She also invited TREES Cameroon Program Coordinator, Louis Nkembi, to participate in the pre-service training of Peace Corps volunteers. While traveling, Catherine was informed that the Min-istry of Forestry is starting a reforestation program this year and had selected 25 NGOs they believe are doing an outstanding job of planting trees, to receive funding to support their work. The reforestation initiative aims to plant 3 million trees in 2010 and will give 5,000,000 XOF (approximately $9,865) to the 25 NGOs selected by the Ministry. Trees for the Future, due to the strong leadership by Louis Nkembi and our recognition for having led substantial tree-planting efforts in the re-gions we work in within Cameroon, was selected as one of the NGOs to receive this funding. Louis Nkembi is also director of the Cameroonian non-profit The Environment and Rural Development Foundation. In May 2010, Mr. Nkembi received one of the world's most prestigious environmental awards from the Whitley Fund for Nature, WFN, in London, UK, for his work through ERuDef on a community-based landscape and biodiversity management project. ERuDef focuses on education of rural communities and of young professionals in the conversation field with the goal of preserving forest cover and biodiver-sity in the Western Highlands of Cameroon. While

ERuDef is interested in conserving all flora and fauna, there is particular interest in Cross River Gorillas which are only found in Cameroon and Nigeria. Trees for the Future supports agroforestry projects around the Lebi-alem Highlands in an effort to create a buffer zone to prevent unsustainable agriculture from encroaching on the forest areas which will further reduce gorilla habi-tat. The agroforestry projects in this region also serve to provide habitat for avian species and important wa-tershed protection. We visited the future grounds of a regional agroforestry resource center that will provide our Cameroon program with their own seed source and expanded grounds for agroforestry training. The area chosen is also an important watershed where streams have currently dried up due to agricultural expansion and development in the area. The site is in a cloud for-est habitat that will be essential for the conservation of avian species in the region as well. As a result of the field visit in Cameroon, an article was published on August 9th in the Cameroonian in-dependent newspaper, The Post. The article describes TREES Long Distance Agroforestry Training Program, and offered a link to our website. The article has proved to be effective as there has been a recent increase in emails, tests, and small projects inquiries coming from Cameroon during the last month.

Introducing Peter Kell


More than 50% of coffee farmers in Honduras are considered small producers, cultivating 5 acres or less of coffee. Of these farmers the majority use coffee as their only source of income. This small quantity and the volatility of the international coffee market, and the concentration of income in 2 to 3 months of the year, leave these 100,000 plus families always on the brink of economic disaster. In 2009 Trees for the Future entered in a working rela-tionship with IHCAFE (Instituto Hondureño de Café), to aid in an agroforestry project aimed at improving quality of coffee produced by small coffee farmers as well as to diversify their production so they have in-come outside of the coffee harvest, as well as an income cushion for the years when the coffee harvest is low or international prices have fallen. The 2010 planting season began with the initial stag-es of an IHCAFE project called Small Producer Pro-duction Improvement (PAPP for initials in Spanish). A mix of trees was planted in coffee farms at a density of 400 trees per hectare, with 100 high value timber trees mixed together with 300 low growing nitrogen-fixing trees. Timber species include Swietenia macrophylla, Swietenia humilis, Bombacopsis quintinia, Cordia sp, Khaya senegalensis, Acrocarpus fraxinifolius, and Ce-drela odorata. Seeds were provided to 800 small pro-ducers in each of the 7 coffee producing regions of Hon-duras for a total of 560,000 plants. Seeds were provided to additional coffee producers who had not yet enrolled in this project for a total of 1 million more plants. In July and August Joshua Bo-gart, TREES regional coordina-tor, has been making frequent field visits with technician Juan Gabriel Lozano, IHCAFE’s for-ester in charge of the agroforestry project. So far the visits have covered 5 Regional offices in the departments of El Paraiso, Olan-cho, Choluteca, Comayagua, and Intibuca, while the other three regional offices (Santa Barbara, West, and Cortez) will be visited in late August. In the early trips we met with producers in the five departments who were excited for the extension of the project and

expressed a lot of interest in diversifying the species we are using to include species which will provide local timber and firewood, as well as high value fruit species. The producers in the village of El Zapote in the de-partment of Intibuca have been working with TREES local technician Jose Hilario since 2009. In August regional coordinator Joshua Bogart, accompanied by IHCAFE forestry technicians, visited the community. They visited two diversified coffee farms, where com-munity members are growing shade grown coffee be-low nitrogen fixing species such as Inga and Gliridicia sepium, which in turn are below a disperse canopy of timber species such as Cordia aliadora, Grevillea ro-busta, or Cedrela odorata. There are also many fruit trees such as guava, banana and plantain species, as well as live barriers of vetiver grass to protect the soils from erosion. These plantations are currently giving their owners income from the coffee, food from the fruit, firewood in the form of prunings and dead branches of trees and coffee plants, as well as a built-in savings ac-count in the timber species. On this trip they found a number of insect attacks in nurseries and young trees of Cedrela odorata. Joshua, who is an entomologist, took the time to give an im-promptu workshop on control of crickets in nurseries using can traps, and manual control of stem borer in Ce-drela saplings, and also touched on formational pruning of mahogany. They are currently planning a second pest control workshop for late August to teach a larger group from surrounding communities.

Creating a Brighter Future for Small Coffee Farmers in Honduras

Joshua works tirelessly to get trees planted on upland areas. At this IHCAFE demonstration plot, Spanish Cedar, Mahogany, and Maropolan, all considered

precious timbers, have been planted to serve as the upper layer of a future multi-story forest garden.


Haiti: New Ideas to Help Desperate People Right after the earthquake, TREES added an agricultural service to the Haiti program. Basic agricultural tools, short-term harvested seeds crops, and technical assistance were furnished to 250 farmers and their relatives who migrated from the Port-Au-Prince area back to the countryside. This support pursuits local community self reliance as it helps people to produce food for themselves, and also to make it available locally. Each farmer receives 2 to 3 kilos of Zea mays seed (chicken corn), Phaseolus vulgaris (bean), Cajanus cajan (pigeon pea), Sorghum bicolor, and about 1.5 lbs. of eggplant and watermelon seeds. Farmers bring back part of the production in order to increase the next season's stock. TREES will purchase these seeds and be able to serve more and more people in need for the season ahead. Despite their own meager resources, people of these rural communities have welcomed these families, and shared what they have.

January's earthquake destroyed more than 40% of all buildings in Port-au-Prince. Eventually, it left more than a million refugees wandering across the countryside with little except the few possessions they could carry away from the disaster. Again, Timote was quick to see the great, and continuing, hardship this would bring to rural communities where desperate people were heading. He was even quicker to take action.

The project purchased good seed of a wide range of vegetables and staples, which were distributed to local farmers. TREES also provided hand tools: the rural communities of Haiti have been so long neglected that tools simply broke or wore out. You can't grow food (or plant trees) without the necessary tools. Now the crops have been produced and hunger is less of a issue. Now farmers are donating 10% of the resulting seeds so even more families can benefit. GREAT JOB, TIMOTE!

More than a million refugees in their own land, no home, no jobs, not enough food. TREES program in Haiti is providing seed to produce food crops,

and hand-tools to make grow-ing that food possible.

Along with seeds of corn, beans, squash, and other food crops, TREES provided hammers, shovels, watering

cans, wheelbarrows, and other agricultural tools so that people can quickly grow food crops, and can later incor-porate agroforestry strategies. TREES Haiti program is trying to meet the needs of Haiti's desperate earthquake

refugees.


Trees for the Future believes that tree-planting can play a role in the prevention of malaria by helping mini-mize the breeding habitat for malaria-vector mosqui-toes, while at the same time increasing the locale for its predators. We already know that planting trees can help stop soil erosion, increase crop yields and nourish the land, but we are now also learning that planting trees can help stop the spread of malaria. People think of tree-planting as just being good for the environment, but it also helps people, sometimes in ways that aren’t obvious.As nonprofits and governments around the world work to prevent this deadly disease, Trees for the Future agro-forestry experts point out that planting trees can help reduce the incidence of malaria in three major ways:• Reduce standing water—Trees absorb substantial amounts of water through their root systems, thus re-ducing areas of standing water where mosquitoes breed. Water pooling is often exacerbated due to poor filtration into the soil as a result of deforestation. By planting trees, you greatly increase the absorption of water into the soil, therefore decreasing the incidence of malaria.• Increase habitat of natural predators—Planting trees helps increase the biodiversity of an area by provid-ing important habitat for natural predators of mosqui-toes, such as birds and spiders, which can help fight the spread of malaria. • Produce a natural mosquito repellent—The neem tree (Azadirachta indica), which we widely plant, produces a natural insect repellent which can be easily extracted from leaves and seeds and made into soaps, creams, and powders that are effective at repelling and con-trolling mosquitoes. Neem can also be planted around compounds and villages to reduce the prevalence of mosquitoes in areas where people live. When we talk about ways to prevent the spread of ma-laria we usually talk about mosquito nets, bug repellents and prophylactic medicine, but the role of tree-planting and other agroforestry initiatives definitely needs to be part of the conversation. Moringa, commonly referred to as the "Miracle Tree," provides hope for struggling communities in Haiti. Experts say with the increased pressure for basic resources in a country wrecked by January’s devastating earthquake, the benefits of plant-ing Moringa in Haiti shouldn’t be overlooked. In Haiti, we are heavily planting Moringa to help reju-

venate communities because the trees grow quickly and serve multiple purposes. Moringa can provide a steady supply of highly nutritious, protein-rich leaves for a community within four months – without even cutting the tree down. Moringa works well with different species includ-ing gardening and commercial crops like tomatoes and corn. Trees for the Future’s approach encompasses sus-tainable agroforestry by integrating tree-planting with agricultural initiatives and gardening activities to ben-efit the trees and increase crop yields. The "Miracle Tree" not only provides leaves that help combat undernourishment, but it can also help fertilize the soil, restore degraded farmlands, and increase crop yields. Because of the Moringa leaves' nutritional ben-efits, individual vendors in Haiti could sell them at local markets, providing a reliable cash income. The leaves are rich in beta carotene, iron, protein and potassium and can be used in sauces, and to help reduce malnutri-tion—especially in infants and nursing mothers. The branches and the leaves of Moringa can be fre-quently harvested because they quickly grow back, therefore, it becomes a sustainable resource for com-munities who lack basic resources. In Haiti, we are dealing with food security issues and problems caused by degraded farmland on a grand scale, and Moringa is proving to be a miracle solution to these problems.

A town in Haiti where there lack of tree cover, heavy rainfall, and standing water combine to breed large

numbers of malaria carrying mosquitoes.

Trees and Malaria Prevention in Haiti


Where Will Everybody Go? The greatest thing, by far, about my work is the op-portunity, not often enough, to get out to project sites in countries where we work throughout the developing world. For me, it reinforces what we believe and why we keep doing our best to save as many of these threat-ened communities as possible. I recently visited an upland community in Northern Honduras, called El Zapote. There, the agroforestry workshop taking place turned into quite a fiesta as most of the community turned out for loud music with a Latin beat, a prayer, some serious work in the coffee fields, and a lunch the ladies had prepared. Finally it was my turn to say a few words and, when I started to do so, providence rescued the crowd. The sky opened. Those with umbrellas or plastic sheets were further en-tertained as I slid back down the mountainside. A great time for all. People in such remote villages, all around the world, do their best to enjoy whatever pleasures life brings their way. I see the wooden plows they use to break the rocky soil, dating back as far as ancient Egypt. The bullocks actually push the plow with their foreheads by way of a heavy yoke tied, not to their shoulders, but to their horns. And I ask myself: can life be any better for the man following that plow, or for the family that depends on this land for their lives? Yet, despite such harsh lives, the burden of never knowing what tomorrow might bring, they somehow struggle through and quickly turn to laughter and song whenever the opportunity allows. What of the children of such a village who struggle to get an education in a run-down school house, with a teacher, herself, not possessing many years of learning? How will they survive in a world so rapidly changing that even the best educated of them can barely keep up? The children themselves are quite aware that their up-land homes offer little hope for a future. They quickly grab any opportunity to learn a little more, to someday be able to get out of such places–and never look back. I sometimes wonder how people here would answer if they were asked: What would happen to you if one day some official came and told you that you must leave this place within only a few months? That in a very short time you and all your friends and neighbors must be gone? What would you do? Where would you go? For people who have only their small piece of land, who have no “safety net,” this would be a very frighten-

ing thought. No, it’s not going to happen. No person would dare say such a thing. Even if they forced you to leave here, where would they put you? The city slums already have far more people than they can provide even mini-mal care to. But I would go on to ask them: did you ever think that someday, maybe in only a few years, the land itself might tell you that you have to leave? Why? Because the way your land is being farmed is killing the soil, killing the tree cover which has restored both the land and your supply of clean water over all these years. Your cattle, wandering the steep uplands, are stripping away the protective grasses, speeding up the destruc-tion - and not giving you one centavo of income in re-turn for all of that. That’s what’s coming. In other plac-es it already came. It’s happening in villages all around the world, some not so far away. So, unless something is done–and quickly–it will soon happen here. We don’t need to have this conversation in the commu-nities where we work because, deep down, these people have already figured this out. They desperately seek answers. But El Zapote is a long way up that mountain on a road best travelled by goats, and they don’t get many visitors, especially those who might bring them the answers they need. TREES is there. We’ve earned that precious commod-ity–credibility–because our ideas are simple but practi-cal. They bring results. They require some hard work–nothing new there–but not money out of anybody’s pocket. We provide ideas, seeds, some hand tools, and especially, real concern that the people of this commu-nity will live, happily and sustainably on this land–for a very long time. That’s what you are making possible. From the people of villages all around the world–thank you.

The whole town turned out for a workshop in El Zapote.

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Insidep 1: Honduras, Things Get Done When Concerned Groups Work Together. – by Peter Kellp 2-3: Opinion: How About Investing in People? – by Dave Deppner p 5: Over 350 TREES project sites now on Google Earth – by Gorav Sethp 6: Prisoners Planting Trees in Ethiopia – by Gabriel Buttramp 7: Planting Season in the Philippines – by Francis Deppner p 8-9: About Cows and Mud – by Dave Deppnerp 10-11: Ghana and Cameroon Field Visit – by Cathie Bukowskip 11: Introducing Peter Kell p 12: Creating a Brighter Future for Small Coffee Farmers in Honduras – by Joshua Bogartp 13: Haiti, New Ideas to Help Desperate Peoplep 14: Trees and Malaria Prevention in Haiti - by Alison Beckwithp.15: Where Will Everyone Go? – by Dave Deppner

There are now 390 parts per million of carbon in the global atmosphere. It increases daily. Scientists say a safe level is 350 ppm. 2010 is well on its way to being the hottest year ever recorded. In and around Moscow, where summer temperatures normally hang around the low 80's, daytime temperatures reach over 100 degrees. Over 30% of the country's wheat crop has been destroyed. Air pollution is seven times acceptable levels. Some 20 million people in Pakistan are victims of flooding caused by the tremendous monsoon rains. Thousands have already died. Most are without food and shelter. Unusually heavy seasonal rains are bringing deadly landslides to China and South America. Trees help protect the planet. Let's Plant More Trees!

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