What You’ve Done: Trees, Trees and More Trees

One of the coolest things about my job as Director of Goodness at Tonic is making sure all the good things that you facilitate through your actions at Tonic.com actually happen. I am quite excited to report back to you all that Tonic recently sent over $65,000 to our tree-planting partners Sustainable Harvest International, American Forests and Trees for the Future to plant 346,265 trees all over the globe.

You made this happen! From July to December 2008, 7,253 of you signed up for GreenDimes. Last year’s promotion (where we paid people to sign up for our junk mail reduction service) also resulted in 61,876 of you selecting the “plant a tree” option. That’s quite a sizable plate of action!

Trees for the Future (TFTF) recently gave me the scoop as to how it has spent Tonic funds in Africa.

TFTF is addressing one of the more dire problems in Ethiopia -- soil erosion -- with an aggressive tree-planting program through partners located in the country. Over-grazing by cattle, sheep, goats and donkeys have resulted in deep gullies running across the landscape that no longer support forage for livestock feeding. The destruction of natural ecosystems is accelerating.

TFTF and its Ethiopian partner, Greener Ethiopia (GE) is working with local farmers to institute “confinement-rearing systems,” which improve animal health and reduces pressure on the land. At the same time, the organizations are rehabilitating the land by filling in gullies with a combination of dikes formed with bagged soil and planting vetiver grass to hold down the soil. The groups then plant a wide range of deep-rooted trees amongst these dikes and grasses -- especially trees that provide forage.

Introduction of grevillea trees has become popular since a growing market exists for their lumber and TFTF has applied Tonic contributions towards the creation of “living fences” using these trees planted in 3-foot intervals. Families are also planting seedlings at the base of banana trees and find that the banana trees provide enough water throughout the dry season for the seedlings to flourish. Other trees planted throughout the country included fruit trees, nitrogen-fixing species, shade-bearing species, medicinal species and coffee.

Greener Ethiopia and Trees for the Future distributed a total of 5,585,449 multipurpose tree seedlings to farmers in the four Weredas (districts) in the Gurage Zone of Ethiopia. The organizations augmented plantings with agro forestry training to farmers.

While I provide some photos of this project in this article, TFTF has created the ability for you to look directly at their nurseries and progress at Google Earth. To view, download the free version of Google Earth and then this file http://treesftf.org/projects/treesftf.kmz. Zoom into Ethiopia on the map, and then click on the trees to view descriptions and pictures of some of the projects. In some cases, the satellite shots are actually clear enough to see nurseries and reforested areas! Experienced users can also create a “network link” in Google Earth to http://www.plant-trees.org/projects/treesftf.kmz.

TFTF has also applied Tonic funds to new programs in Uganda and Kenya. The Kenyan programs are confronting poverty issues through health, such as HIV/AIDS treatment and nutrition improvement. The aim is to improve agricultural production by first addressing health issues that prevent the community from performing at top efficiency.

We are proud and pleased about all the great work that Trees for the Future and our other partners are accomplishing! Please keep coming back to Tonic as we make it easy for you to do good things.

Photos courtesy of Trees for the Future. Top: a volunteer plants an apple tree seedling in Ethiopia. Bottom: A tree nursery in Butagira, Ethiopia.