summer 2011 newsletter

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

Tree Planting and a Collegiate American-Football Game, Tanzania

Summer 2011 Vol. XIX, No. 2

The quarterly newsletter of Trees for the Future

Drake University and a Mexico-wide all star team played the first game of collegiate American football on the African continent, in Arusha, Tanzania, May 21. Known as the Global Kilimanjaro Bowl, it focused on connecting several cultures to raise awareness for working towards the betterment of the living conditions and environmental resources in Tanzania.

The game was attended by locals from across Tanzania, the ex-patriot community, officials from all levels of Tanzanian government, the U.S. Ambassador to Tanzania and the Mexican Ambassador to East Africa. The press was eager to follow the news, and the festivities were broadcasted across the country, also appearing in over 130 publications worldwide. Victory went to Drake, in a 17-7 win.

But sports were only a small part of what the teams came to do. Working through Iowa Resource for International Service (IRIS), the players, coaches and families teamed up with alumni from the U.S. State Department’s Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study Program (YES) to participate in community service projects throughout the Moshi area. While visiting 11 different communities, they were able to build two new classrooms, construct one orphanage dormitory, repair and paint four classrooms in four schools, build

four recreational facilities (soccer, netball, volleyball and basketball), and speak with youth about the importance of healthy lifestyles.

David Tye and Andrew Zacharias, Trees for the Future East Africa Coordinators, were approached by IRIS to consult on tree planting projects at several of these sites. They were able to recommend the types of fast-growing, multipurpose trees that would be the most beneficial to the local communi-ties. Their focus aimed at improving the sustainable use of trees, especially as renewable sources of firewood, char-coal, and fodder, as well as for shade at schools and orphanages.

Through partnering with IRIS, Tanzanian Breweries, the Moshi Municipal Government, and over 150 volunteers, Trees for the Future assisted in planting trees at Bridge Nursery School, Kaloleni District School, Kitaa Hope Orphanage, Mawenzi Secondary School, Shauri Moyo Primary School for the Intellectually Challenged, Soweto Primary School, and Tema Secondary School. Each of these sites benefited from an assortment of multipurpose, fast-growing seedlings such as Gliricidia sepium, Acrocarpus fraxinifolius, Senna siamea, and Afzelia quanzensis, as well as varieties of fruit trees such as mango and papaya.

David and Andrew also Continued p. 10


Johnny Ipil-Seed News is a quarterly newsletter of TREES FOR THE FUTURE, Inc., a 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, Dave Deppner - President Emeritus, Mr. Bedru Sultan, Mr. Franz Stuppard, Mr. John Leary, Linda Sobel Katz, R. Grace Deppner - Members

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

STAFFDave Deppner - Founder, President Emeritus

R. Grace Deppner - Founder, Associate DirectorDavid Tye - International Program Manager

Joshua Bogart - Central America CoordinatorJeff Follett - South America Coordinator

Francis Deppner - Southeast Asia CoordinatorGabriel Buttram - Ethiopia Coordinator

Ryan McCullough - AdministratorPeter Kell - Newsletter Coordinator

FIELD STAFFLouis Nkembi - Cameroon; Gerardo Santos Matta, Jose Hilario, Osorio Giron - Honduras, Sagapala Gangisetty, Manoj Bhatt, Aman Singh - India; Donal Perez - Nicaragua, Dan-ny Zabala - Philippines, Omar Ndao, Karamba Diakhaby - Senegal; Kay Howe, Abdul Chamid - Indonesia; Fernanda Peixoto - Brazil, Andrew Zacharias - Tanzania, Paulino Damiano Mugendi,Dickson Omandi - Kenya; Mathius Lukwago - Uganda; Lovans Owusu-Takyi - Ghana; Robin Achah - Camer-oon; Alexis Nitunga - Burundi; 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: [email protected]

www.plant-trees.orgwww.TreesForTheFuture.org

In This Issue

1 Tanzania-Collegiate American-Football3 Opinion: Maybe We Should Start Thinking For Ourselves4 Words of Appreciation to TREES' Founder6 Ethiopia-Facilitators for Change 8 Sesbania in the Spotlight10 Kilimanjaro Bowl continued/ Fodder Trees in Meru South District of Kenya11 Introducing Ryan McCullough/ TREES Project Documentaries on YouTube.com12 Colombia-Short and Long Term Benefits/ Philippines-Update13 Agroforestry Takes Root in Nicaragua14 Haiti-Reversing Environmental Degradation15 India-Positive Response/ Brazil-Improving

Production

"I view Dave not just as a director of an organization, but as a defender of those people who have claims that are not listened to, and for those who have

an appetite, but no food." Timote Georges

Ramu Naik, in Golla Palli Thanda, India standing before a row of Sesbania grandiflora. More on this noble tree species,

pages 8 and 9


They say the most expensive game in town is not played at the track or at the casinos. You can play it right at home. It’s called “kidding yourself.”

It’s especially expensive when played at the national level because then you start playing with human lives and using our children as the chips.

In a world facing some very serious threats: pollu-tion of our atmosphere, a growing worldwide shortage of food and water, rising seas and the loss of some 23 square miles of the world’s forests every day, we had best plan very carefully, getting the best information possible and getting straight answers. Losing this time when the stakes are so high would have unthinkable results. Very few of us would survive, and that survival would be under extremely unpleasant conditions. We would therefore be gambling with the lives of our families and friends, which seems dumb enough, but also gambling with generations yet unborn, which seems stupid beyond belief.

All of this means that each of us have a responsibility to get the facts, and to see all sides of these issues so that, together, we can make the decisions that will allow all of us to get through this mess together. Anyone who deliberately offers us false or misleading information, knowing full well that even he and his progeny would never survive the catastrophe has to be extremely well paid or, maybe, seriously warped.

Some issues not being discussed: Anybody who has ever set his hand to a plow understands that a land with no winter (such as the humid tropics) can produce maybe even three times as much as can more temperate places such as the United States. Also, any place where people would happily accept jobs paying only $20 a week would have far lower labor costs than here in the USA.

So why then are all the proposed plans depend-ing on producing bio-fuels here? Why do we remain fixed on the idea of burning a highly important human food, corn, in our automobiles, despite the growing food shortage worldwide? Why are all these plans on producing green fuels centered in the USA, even though it’s highly unlikely that we can compete in producing these bio-fuels?

There are, of course, plenty of sustainable energy sources here at home: wind and solar especially, and these are just starting to make a significant dent in our consumption of fossil fuels. But the pace of change is agonizingly slow even though the oil companies keep telling us how many million people they employ. The fact that wind and sunlight come to us for free should be a strong incentive, but it seems the opposite effect is happening. It's hard to sell $4.00 gasoline against free sunshine.

Every time Washington talks about our failing economy, or an inability to continue to manage our national debt, why doesn’t anybody mention the billions of dollars we send out every month to buy oil from people who obviously don’t like us very much? If that money stayed at home, how many millions of jobs could that generate?

Since none of the present planning seems to make any sense economically, why are the investors so de-termined to lead us down the garden path? Some might suggest the motivation is greed. Could that be possible? Could some of us be so in love with money as to have forgotten that they and their families are standing in the same destructive path as the rest of us, and when the bottom falls out we’ll all be in the soup together?

Energy, the sustainable kind, is going to be of increas-ing importance to your tree planting program. Nearly half the people in the world depend almost totally on wood as their energy source. We are always looking for new incentives to reward the people planting these trees, and sustainable wood fuel production brings continuing economic and environmental benefits to the communi-ties we serve. Most of our earliest projects were deeply involved in bringing back tree cover to sustainably produce wood as an environmentally friendly fuel.

There are other important considerations. These trees are an abundant source of organic fertilizer—at no cost to the producers. The tree roots go deep into the earth to capture minerals that have leached from the topsoil, while directing rainfall back into the water table. Other important benefits come from offering sanctuary for birds and wildlife. And, trees clean and cool the air while taking great amounts of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. So, for all of us, it’s vital that we explore all possible sources of sustainable energy.

Dave Deppner,TREES Founder

Opinion: Maybe We Should Start Thinking For Ourselves


Trees for the Future has been around for over 20 years, and that is due, in large part, to the vision of Dave Deppner and his wife, Grace. In the highly competitive non-profit world, organizations do not survive for two decades unless they are based on a truly unique vision developed by a forward-thinking leader. This is evi-dent in what Dave set out to do: promote agroforestry and sustainable agricultural practices that benefit both the rural farmer and the local environment. No other development organization promotes tree planting as Trees for the Future does, and its success demonstrates the effectiveness of the organization born of Dave's vision. Since 1989, he has facilitated planting millions of trees in over a dozen countries, helping hundreds of communities and tens of thousands of people. Dave Deppner was a true visionary when he established Trees for the Future, and this vision continues to help improve the lives of families around the world.

-David Tye

Over three years ago I sat down with Dave Deppner at the kitchen table in the Trees for the Future office to discuss the creation of a South America program. Two hours flew by as we talked about our times as Peace Corps volunteers, about the countries we had visited, and about strategies to help people around the world. This discussion counted as my interview and I started work a week later.

What I found impressive at that time, and continue to find amazing today, is Dave’s persistence. He has worked over 20 years to make Trees for the Future a viable organization that helps both people and the environment. Despite many setbacks over the years, he remains positive about our work and about the potential for trees to make a difference in people’s lives.

I think that if there is one thing I have learned from Dave it is to persist even when all odds are against you. That is how Dave has made it this far and how he will continue to overcome obstacles in the future.

My thanks goes out to Dave and Grace for creating Trees for the Future, and for providing me with opportunities to grow as a professional. Dave should be proud that his vision lives on in trees planted in communities around the world.

-Jeff Follett, South America Program Coordinator

Dave's Persistence

A Few Notes of Appreciation to TREES' Founder Dave Deppner's Vision

Dave, It is a great pleasure to share with you, and with

the staff of Trees for the Future, our deep and sincere thanks for the positive impact and immeasurable ben-efits for the Honduran people that your project has made—having engaged mainly with poor communities.

We know that one of your passions is to encourage people to plant trees for coffee-shade, fuel woods, ni-trogen fixation in the soil, and for food from fruit trees.

Dave, without your input, effort and constant dedica-tion, this program would not be possible today.

Again, on behalf of Honduran communities, many thanks indeed for your wonderful help and for the years to come.

-Oscar Ochoa Semillas Tropicales

On Behalf of Hondurans


Dave Deppner Gave Me a Chance I’m proud to say that I thought of the idea of using

leguminous trees to repair degraded land on my own. But upon contacting Trees for the Future, I realized that the wheel had already been invented and rolled for great lengths around the world.

I found the TREES website in 2003 while searching “tropical reforestation,” in hopes of volunteering for this cause. Upon calling the TREES office, I was surprised that Dave took a half hour to talk to me about agrofor-estry. He explained how the practice brings dead land back to life, recreates wildlife habitat, and provides for human needs, and that without meeting human needs, reforestation efforts will not last. We spoke several times over the following five years, until in 2008, I an-nounced that I was ready to move to Washington DC, with the intent of volunteering in the office. “Sure, just send me your resume,” he told me before later turning me down for lack of experience and a college degree.

However, because of my insistence that I yearned to do my part, and that I would immediately get back into school, Dave gave me a chance when other non-profit organizations would have slammed the door in my face.

Hence, over the past three years, I am happy to have taken significant steps. In that time I have achieved my associate degree, contributed to TREES media and out-reach work, obtained agroforestry field experience, and have become ready to begin working on my bachelor's in Restoration Ecology. The desire to do great work with my life was in me, and because of his person-to-person, cowboy style, Dave provided the opportunity for me to turn this passion into something productive.

-Peter Kell, Newsletter Coordinator

I first heard about Trees for the Future in 2008 from a TREES publication. I was not in Haiti at that time, but was aware of the trips that Trees for the Future organized to the country, visiting communities living in the most environmentally degraded areas. One of these trips was led by TREES Director, Mr. Dave Deppner. The article about Dave’s trip explained and showed images of how Dave and a driver were struggling with an old car in the bad road conditions leading to these communities. But he finally was able to meet the people. He spent time with them, listened to them and saw the realities. That does not often happen.

This dedication from Dave was one of my motivations to engage in helping to sustain Haitian people's lives and livelihoods through planting trees. His commitment to make TREES work in Haiti is remarkable among Haitian communities, and his instructions are amongst the best I have had.

I view Dave not just as a director of an organization, but as a defender of those people who have claims that are not listened to, and for those who have an appetite but no food. This category of people includes those marginalized ones living in the degraded lands, who own nothing other than a piece of lifeless soil. While serving these poor communities, Dave makes his own life a way for the people to survive.

Under his direction, we started the Haiti program with just one tree nursery, and today (three years later) it has grown to 22 tree nurseries, in 22 Haitian communities. Over the years, the amount of people in Haiti that TREES impacts has more than doubled annually.

The basis of Trees for the Future's success in Haiti is the core values it combines with techniques. In order to authentically meet the current and future generations' expectations, technicians around the world need to do the same: Practice values and techniques.

-Timote Georges Haiti Technician

A Defender of Those Unheard

“We are especially grateful for the support we have received from you and other organizations over the past few years. We know that it is through such support that we will be able to continue to expand our efforts to stem the tide of environmental degradation.”

-Loret Miller Ruppee Peace Corps Director, 1981-89

From Lorette Miller Ruppee-1988


Some of Trees for the Future’s greatest assets are the partnerships and synergies we have created with local, endogenous development organizations around the world. These partners, often organized and man-aged by community members to respond to the specific problems of their communities, have a unique understanding of the needs and interests of their project participants and the challenges they are facing. Having created these partnerships, Trees for the Future is able to assist local organizations in building the capacities of community leaders through providing technical and material support that directly and effectively address the specific needs of the communities.

One such partnership is with Facilitators for Change Ethiopia (FCE), an indigenous NGO that is working in part to expand agricultural diversity, and improve household nutrition and market-access for rural farmers in Ethiopia. Our partnership with FCE began when Berhanu Bedhiye, Project Manager for FCE’s Oljedha Project, contacted us to participate in our Long Distance Agroforestry Training Program.

Berhanu is native to the Oljedha project area, around Dimtu, in Oromiya State. He is an outgoing, charismatic and well-respected project manager who has a dedicated inter-est in working with com-munities near his home, to protect their natural resources and to improve their economic situation. Over the years, Berhanu has witnessed the accelerat-

ing pace of environmental degradation in his com-munity, largely resulting from deforestation, intensive farming practices, and overgrazing. With an interest to reverse the trend of degradation, he began looking for appropriate technologies that might address these problems. Therefore, he was excited to find out about Trees for the Future, who was already working in Ethiopia, specifically to address such issues.

After reading TREES' Agroforestry Training Program Manual and passing the exam, Berhanu met with TREES Ethiopia Program Coordinator, Gabriel Buttram, to dis-cuss the possibilities of collaborating on agrofor-estry extension projects around Dimtu. A farmer himself, Berhanu was excited to try out the different techniques he learned from the train-ing program, in his fields and garden. He was also interested in integrating an agroforestry and sustain-able land management component into the project he is managing for Facilitators for Change Ethiopia.

Gabriel visited FCE’s project office in Dimtu for the first time in September 2010. While there, he met with Berhanu, his Dimtu staff, and a number of proj-ect participants to discuss the importance of plant-ing trees and using their resources more sustainably. They had a lively discus-sion that helped answer questions and address many

of the concerns farmers had regarding tree planting, as well as to identify different inhibitors that kept farm-

Building Partnerships: Facilitators for Change Ethiopia

TREES coordinator Gabriel Buttram teaching at a workshop in Dimtu, with the Ethiopian NGO,

Facilitators for Change Ethiopia

Soil conservation trainees planting vetiver grass on a fanya juu mound, which will develop into an agricultural

terrace, and help slow soil erosion


ers from planting more trees. After this visit, Berhanu and his staff began providing training—based on Trees for the Future’s Agroforestry Training Program—to communities in their project area. By the end of 2010, FCE had trained 190 farmers, both men and women, on agroforestry and sustainable land use practices.

In early 2011, Berhanu and his team began work-ing with farmers in twenty different communities to establish small-scale, community-managed seedling nurseries. TREES provided enough seed for the communities to raise about 10,000 seedlings in each of the 20 nurseries. These seedlings will be planted to provide shade for coffee, as well as fuelwood, timber and livestock fodder. Now that the rainy season has arrived in the Dimtu area, tree planting is commencing.

In June, Gabriel visited the FCE Oljedha Project for the second time to facilitate a two-day training session on agroforestry and sus-tainable land-use practices. Thirty-five farmers and community leaders from throughout the project area were selected by FCE to participate. FCE’s techni-cal staff also participated in the training, to further build their own capacity so that they can extend the les-sons they learned in future training and site visits.

During the training, they covered a variety of topics, including the root causes of land degradation, and dif-ferent steps they can take to reverse or prevent this problem. A primary focus of the training was to help the farmers better under-stand the importance of soil conservation and nutrient cycling. Being a mountainous area, Dimtu Farmers are

often compelled to plant crops on steep slopes. Without taking steps to protect the fragile topsoils from washing away—as the farmers are quick to attest—crop yields decrease rapidly from one season to the next. Thus, the second day of the workshop was used to provide practical training on building and using an A-frame to find horizontal contours on a hillside. Next, the trainees worked collectively to dig fanya juu trenches along the contours which, over time, will create bench terraces to conserve soil and water. They then planted vetiver grass

on the excavated mounds of dirt piled on the uphill side of the trenches. This grass, along with nitrogen-fixing trees, will help to stabilize the soil while increasing the nutrient con-tent of the terrace system.

Altogether, this train-ing was a success. All of the trainees were thank-ful for the opportunity to participate, and seemed genuinely interested and excited to take the lessons they learned back home with them. The majority of them expressed their interest in implementing one or more of the agroforestry tech-niques they learned during the training. Some declared that they plan to dig fanya juu terraces on their own sloped fields. Berhanu and his team, as well as Gabriel, where possible and needed, will provide follow-up and further technical support to assist these participants in successfully completing their projects.

This training also served to further strengthen the partnership between Facilitators for Change Ethiopia and Trees for the

Future. Both partners are excited to expand these train-ing and tree planting activities next season.

Berhanu Bedhiye in his seedling nursery in Dimtu. Berhanu is raising Grevillea robusta, an excellent, fast-growing species

that is great for land restoration and apiculture, and is a useful wood for fuel and light construction

Using an A-Frame to find the contour lines on a hillside. Once delineated, grasses and trees can be planted or fanya juu

systems built along the lines to control runoff and soil erosion


Sesbania in the SpotlightWorthy of this issue’s spotlight, Sesbania sesban and Sesbania grandiflora, with their yellow, red, white, or pink

flowers, contribute more than just beauty to the places they grow. Requiring little more than sunlight and water, these trees labor away in Trees for the Future agroforestry projects around the world.

Members of the Fabaceae family, both are leguminous, draped with long cylindrical bean pods, and have root nodules that efficiently fix atmospheric nitrogen into usable forms taken up by the their roots and other nearby plants. Sesbania sesban, is believed to have originated in Africa, while Sesbania grandiflora is considered native to many Southeast Asian countries. Both have been introduced to tropical countries spanning the globe.

With its large flowers, hence the name: "grandiflora," Sesbania grandiflora reaches heights of fifteen meters and is capable of producing straight poles for construction material, while Sesbania sesban tops out at about seven meters. S. sesban, either single, or multi-stemmed, is capable of producing many lateral branches, and tends to take on a shrubby demeanor. The leaves of both trees are compound, resembling those of a fern, with the slender rounded leaflets extending about four centimeters in length. Being lowland species, both are suited for hot and humid environments, and are tolerant of seasonal flooding, able to survive in waterlogged soil.

Both of these Sesbania species are extremely fast growing and establish well on a range of poor soils. They are suitable for use as a windbreak or as a boundary line with leaves that can be regularly harvested as a source of high-quality fodder for cattle and goats—providing forage within the first six months. Due to the species' sparse crowns, which allow sunlight to pass through (S. grandiflora bearing leaves only on the terminal ends of branches), they are often interplanted amongst crops within agricultural fields as they improve and rejuvenate the soil. And, although their low-density wood is fast-burning and can produce a lot of smoke, they are fast growing and coppicable, growing an abundance of stems and branches, which makes them a popular source of fuelwood in many rural areas.

Sesbania flowers, leaflets, and long bean pods are edible to both cattle and people


Trees for the Future's Ethiopia Program planted more than 225,000 Sesbania sesban trees last year, and around 190,000 this year. It is favorable for the region due to the difficult soils in many parts of Ethiopia that expand and contract with the alternating wet and dry seasons, which pull apart the roots of many other tree species. In Ethiopia it is oftentimes used for gully erosion control, as the seeds are cheap, have a high germination rate, and establish quickly. In 2010, a project coordinator broadcasted seeds by hand into gullies, and after recently revisiting the restoration site, no-ticed that Sesbania sesban trees are growing there in abundance.

TREES Central America Program Coordinator, Joshua Bogart, is using Sesbania grandiflora for the first time this year. Two thousand seeds were distributed to coffee farmers in Honduras, and are expected to begin providing shade cover for young coffee plants within six months. In Nicaragua, ten thousand seeds were distributed for forage production to cattle farmers whose fields are flooded for part of the year.

Many TREES participants in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and Zambia plant Sesbania sesban as a boundary line for their farms or homesteads. This allows them to conveniently harvest leaves and firewood from the trees, while improving the surrounding soil through nitrogen fixation. On occasions, farmers will plant S. sesban as part of a rotational agriculture system, and remove the trees after one to three years, leaving the soil in an improved condition.

Over 20,000 seeds of S. grandiflora have been distributed to farmers in TREES' India program, where the trees are being intercropped as a source of green fertilizer. (See picture, table of contents)

In addition to the trees’ many uses, they are also a source of fiber for making rope, cellulose for paper, and gum for use in foods and adhesives. The roots and leaves of both are used as folk medicine to treat a variety of ailments, and the flowers of both species are used in stews and salads. In some societies, the leaves and bean pods of S. grandiflora are eaten.

For all of these reasons, Sesbania sesban and Sesbania grandiflora, we hail your diligent work in improving living and environmental conditions around the world. Thank you!

One year old Sesbania grandiflora providing shade for Crossandra infundibuliformis, a market flower

used in garlands. Garika Palli, India

Sesbania sesban flourishing in a gully restoration project in Ethiopia


Since Trees for the Future started working with local community groups in Kenya three years ago, there has been considerable tree planting progress on farms, on public lands, and within protected forests. Seeds have been distributed to a variety of community groups, local NGO’s, individual farmers, and schools in dis-tricts throughout the country.

Many farmers from Meru South District have benefited from TREES' projects, especially when such projects promote the planting of fodder trees, such as Sesbania sesban, Calliandra calothyrsus and Leucaena leucocephala, as it is common for these farmers to keep dairy goats, which are either grazed in nearby

fields, or are provided grasses and leaves. As an alternative, this fodder-tree planting project has provided them with a reli-able, plentiful and nutritious source of fodder

for their goats. Similar projects in other parts of the world have shown a substantial increase in goat growth and milk production, and farmers are now starting to see the impact of these fodder species. Within a very short duration of time they have noted a 45% to 65% increase in milk production.

Children from the age of 1 month to 8 years old have been advised by nutritional health technicians to drink goat milk since it is very nutritious and boosts the immune system. Besides health benefits, the increased milk production is being used as a source of income generation, with one liter of goats milk selling for the equivalent of $1.50. Although this amount may seem small, the added income can really help rural fami-lies. As a contrast, 1 liter of cows milk is sold for the equivalent of $0.30.

The success of the fodder tree planting project in Meru South District shows that this type of project can be combined with milking goat projects throughout Kenya and East Africa. It has proven very beneficial in terms of improved nutrition and income generation for the household. This demonstrates another way that agroforestry can help benefit rural farmers throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

Fodder Trees in Meru South District of Kenya

facilitated several small workshops with members of both teams, and with secondary school students. During the three days of volunteerism, over 500 trees were planted at these sites, including municipal areas within the city of Moshi.

The volunteer projects and tree plantings were a great success and have raised awareness of the importance of reforestation throughout the Kilimanjaro Region. Tanzanian Breweries has voiced their concern over

the correlation between the receding glacial ices atop Mount Kilimanjaro and the high levels of deforestation in the area. In response, the brewery has committed itself to combating deforestation around the mountain by pledging to plant 10,000 trees in the coming year.

Trees for the Future-East Africa looks forward to a continuing partnership with these organizations and governmental agencies to further assist their efforts in sustainable forestry and agroforestry.

Global Kilimanjaro Bowl (Continued from p. 1)

Goats can be fed a tree-leaf forage diet in a ‘cut-and-carry’ system which averts

land degradation due to overgrazing


Introducing Ryan McCulloughRyan McCullough, a new member of Trees for the

Future, has recently graduated from University of Maryland’s R.H. Smith School of Business. Having completed the Entrepreneurship Fellows Program track, Ryan hopes to integrate his accumulated knowledge into Trees for the Future’s plan of action and to help orchestrate a healthy, continual expansion of the organization. He is anticipating the development of partnerships in avenues previously overlooked or unconsidered. TREES has partners all over the world who are involved in various industries, but there are a few more that Ryan believes would like to become a part of our projects. He is developing an innovative approach to help advance Trees for the Future to the forefront of the non-profit sector, and feels that it is only a matter of time before Trees for the Future becomes a household name.

Ryan enjoys all types of outdoor activities, from hiking the billy-goat trails by Great Falls, Maryland to kayaking the Albemarle Sound in the Outer Banks, North Carolina. For fun he enjoys spending the summer rollerblading with his high school friends who still reside in Montgomery County, and in the winter he enjoys several weekends of snow-blading in the Appalachian Mountains.

Upon graduating college, Ryan traveled to Trinity County, California where he spent a few months back-packing in the Trinity National Forest. This is where Ryan was able to experience, first hand, the destruction of beautiful natural landscapes due to logging. Barren

mountainsides with zero tree cover or vegetation in the middle of the wil-derness was all that was left. All of this exposed dirt would, no doubt, erode and wash away, clogging the rivers with silt.

Having spent the last season working on a family-owned walnut and vegetable farm in Northern California, Ryan discovered the significance of the agricultural industry. California alone produces more than half of the domestic fruits and vegetables and a majority comes from family-owned farms.

"It is a real eye-opener," says Ryan, "when you real-ize that only 11% of the earth’s surface is used to grow crops. It is extremely important that this land is properly maintained so that food can continue to be produced for generations. This is why Trees for the Future is so important. By planting trees, soil is retained and brought back to life, aquifers are replenished, sediments are kept out of watersheds, and food is grown. Who would not want to be a part of that!"

Trees for the Future's Newsletter Coordinator, Peter Kell, spent the last winter and spring living at the sustainable land management farm and institute, “CEASO”, in Siguatepeque, Honduras. While there, he filmed TREES Program Coordinator, Joshua Bogart, discussing the project sites that they visited.

These short “Project Documentaries” are available for viewing on our YouTube chan-nel. Go to youtube.com/treesftf then click the “playlists” button at the top-center of the screen. Then select the playlist: “TREES Project Documentation, Honduras,” at the top-right. The other playlist, “Trees for the Future,” features videos of TREES' work in Ethiopia, as well as others.

TREES Project Documentaries on YouTube.com


It was only one year ago that we started working in Colombia. In that short amount of time, Juan Alberto Escobar and Cristina Velez have accomplished so much.

Below, you will see the magnitude of our program. In the top photos, a deforested hillside is being transformed to a shade-grown coffee system, planted with: Cordia alliodora, Erythrina edulis, and Gliricidia sepium. The trees will provide shade for the coffee (naturally an understory species) and will return nutrients to the soil through the natural decomposition of fallen leaves and branches, while also being used for other sources of income, such as fruit and timber. In addition, the trees will reduce erosion on the steep hillsides. This shade coffee system will mimic a natural forest and will provide habitat for many bird species.

Also below, you will see the short-term benefits that we try to provide for project participants. Oscar Rueda has already been able to plant, grow and collect the first harvest from his fodder production plot of Tithonia diversifolia, a woody, flowering herb. His cows will benefit from improved nutrition and will therefore produce more milk. The environment will benefit because his cows will not be grazing on large tracts of land where they would otherwise compact the soil and eat any small trees and vegetation trying to regenerate.

All of you should be extremely proud of what your donations have made possible.

Colombia–Harvesting in the Short-term and Thinking in the Long-term

The program we have in the Philippines is growing quickly as many new partners have joined with us and several big businesses are looking to support our tree planting efforts there. A big trend in the Philippines is planting trees and environmental restoration and several schools, local organizations and businesses are contacting us asking “How can we get involved?” We tell them they can help in any way they can and have had several people throughout the Philippines and abroad travel to our sites to see our work and even

assist us with out planting seedlings. Recently several big businesses in the Philippines have come to us for their corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns and we have worked with them to accommodate their reforestation efforts.

The rains in the Philippines came as expected this year which helped us greatly as last years droughts caused many wildfires that nearly reached our out-planting and nursery sites. Luckily forest guards were put in place who created firebreaks, dug water holes, and carried backpack water sprayers to keep newly planted seedlings properly hydrated. These people live on the lands where our projects are for free, in exchange for them assisting us with nursery creation, assisting with out-planting activities, tending to out-planted seedlings and preventing wildfires. They are using our Forest Garden approach by incorporating fast growing tree species with fruits and vegetables as well as livestock. Living on these lands for only one year, the farmers have created gardens where they are able to supply their own food needs as well and the ability to share with friends and family. This relationship is great for our technicians

During the dry season, unprotected project sites are susceptible to wildfires

Philippines Update


The seeds of change have been planted around Leon, Nicaragua. In 2010, Trees for the Future began communication with Viviendas Leon, an NGO working on income generation projects in poor communities around the area, which has experienced heavy deforestation in order to grow commercial crops, such as peanuts, coffee, and bananas.

TREES' Central America Coordinator, Joshua Bogart, made two field visits to the area to hold discussions with local groups. In January 2011 the communities of Goyena, and Nueva Vida—refugee communities established after Hurricane Mitch—decided to establish three nurseries of 500 trees each, in order to plant live fences and windbreaks. At first the community members were concerned that they were making to big of a commitment and would not be able to plant all of the trees. However, with training provided by Donal Perez, TREES' local technician, they were easily able to plant all 1,500 seedlings.

The trees were outplanted between May and July of 2011, as parts of live fences around people’s yards, as

well as two windbreaks that will protect crops from the dry winds that sweep across this open plain located between the Pacific Ocean and the Maribios Volcanic Chain, to the east.

The communities were so impressed by how easy it was to plant the trees that they requested aid to increase each nurseries' capacity to 1,500 trees in 2012, and to produce seedlings every four months for the coming years. Trees planted include Moringa oleifera, which produces highly nutritious leaves for human consumption, and Gliricidia sepium, which produces leaves for cut-and-carry animal feed as well as a rotational harvest of firewood for use in a cooperative bakery.

Also, facilitated through Viviendas Leon, a youth group from San Francisco aided in the construction of these nurseries. This is significant because it provided hands-on experience, helping to inspire new generations to partake in environmental restoration and conservation efforts.

Agroforestry Takes Root Around Leon, Nicaragua

Left: Local Technician, Donal Perez, mixing lime, which

neutralizes acidity, into the soil of a barestem nursery.

A hurricane fence was built around the nursery to keep

unpenned domestic pigs from eating the seelings

Right: A youth group from San Francisco worked with locals to construct the nurseries. Some

tree species respond better when using the "poly-bag" method

from our partnering organization TREES Philippines, as the project sites are difficult to reach and with so many new sites, having people on location to look after the projects helps them to start additional tree planting projects in new communities.

A new partner has contacted us that is eager to work with us to help local farmers to plant coconuts. This is great news as many coconut trees in the country are too old to bear fruit or are simply dying of old age. Many people in the country want to plant coconut trees, but the high cost of mature nuts that are suitable for planting is too much for them to afford. Luckily this new partner is offering not only to provide them with what they need to plant the coconut trees, but the option to purchase the fruits from the trees upon maturity. This is exactly what we like to hear as there are several people who

know trees are needed but need that extra incentive to actually plant trees and ensure their survival. 2011 looks to be a very promising year in terms of getting more partners to join with us and hopefully we will more than double the number of trees we are able to plant in the Philippines during 2012.


Haiti field staff, led by TREES Local Technician, Timote Georges, have been working hard to re-store environmental and living conditions in their country. Some of their recent accomplishments include: helping young environmental-class students around Gonaives get field experience in TREES nurseries; managing 22 TREES nurseries; out-planting trees on degraded mountain tops, and providing additional agroforestry assistance to more productively cultivate the 2000 pounds of agricultural seeds provided by the Yelevert project—of which TREES is the technical manager.

Also worthy of mention is that the community of Canaan, an earthquake village, north of Port au Prince, did not cease to call for assistance. In response, TREES technicians assisted with the transportation and planting of 10,000 saplings to be used for building material, fertilizer and food.

This rainy season, TREES Haiti team facilitated the planting of over 600,000 trees. Left to right: Trees planted in 2010; out-planting in Canaan;

finding the contour lines, Devanbare; Timote planting Cedrela odorata; out-planting in Cariyes; a children's environmental education class in Mapou Chevalier

Reversing Environmental Degradation in Haiti


In the Spring 2011 Johnny Ipil Seed News we wrote about how our work in Brazil should be judged: that everything we do should improve agricultural production, enhance nutrition, and conserve resources. In this quarter’s newsletter we would like to share two pictures of that process at work. These individuals are striving to improve agricultural production by planting tree species that restore soils and protect crops, namely: mimosa, erythrina, leucaena, acacia, and calliandra. These trees will also improve production and enhance

nutrition by providing food for animals and people.We are excited about an upcoming partnership with

the School of Public Health at the São Paulo University. A team from the university will travel to our project sites to analyze the nutritional content of Moringa oleifera. A nutritional analysis will help farmers market their moringa leaf powder as a supplement and will help them increase market access for the product.

We have had a great response to the article featuring our Brazil program in the June 14, 2011 Global Edition

of Farming Matters magazine, and are excited about the continued expan-sion of our network in Brazil. We look forward to meeting more people inter-ested in practicing agroforestry in Brazil, and we appreciate your generous support of the program.

Despite suffering through a serious drought, proj-ect participants remain positive about what they can accomplish this year. In Talupula, Andhra Pradesh, the trees in the main central nurseries—Delonix regia, Pongamia sp., Azadirachta indica, Moringa oleifera, Sesbania sesban—are doing well and are ready to be transplanted to the field as the rains begin. We were

recently visited by Ramsan, who works for one of our main Indian donors, The Himalaya Drug Company. Ramsan’s words about the program do an excellent job of explaining what has been accomplished and what is possible.

“The 100,000 plants that have been planted in the past two years include fruit bearing trees, as well

as trees with medicinal properties. We can positively speculate and come to the conclusion that in another three years down the line, they will mature, and will be a complete source of income generation, bearing fruit [for people], and fodder for cattle, which will supplement the farmers nominal income. The benefits that will derive from these plantations are expectantly huge.

“Having interacted with the farmers and the benefiting groups of people through the tree plantation project, [I see that] they are extremely happy about the initiatives and are willing to further bank their trust for more initiatives, expan-sion, value addition and addition of programs.”

Positive Response from Our Partners in India

Brazil–Improving Production and Enhancing Nutrition

Local India Technician, Sagapala Gangisetty, standing in a nursery of Delonix regia seedlings

Left: six month old, nutritious, multipurpose Moringa oleifera trees. Right: Alvina Mour's waist high

Gliricidia sepium trees several months after being planted as part of a wind-break/living fence

December 2011


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Of all the tree-planting non-profits in the world today, Trees for the Future serves a special niche. With our commitment to small-holder farmers across the developing world, we are able to direct resources to individuals and communities in need of projects that best support their environmental and development priorities. Because of this grassroots approach, we address a wide variety of issues based around agricultural-reforestation initiatives.

With the increase in global population growth outpacing increases in food production, serious land management issues have arisen throughout developing countries. In response to this situation, we provide a training and tree-seed distribution program that teaches people sustainable land use techniques that improve their livelihoods while reversing the effects of detrimental agricultural practices. Providing knowledge first ensures that the resources we invest in communities are put toward increasing food production, minimizing environmental impact, and inspiring people to sustainably meet their needs.

Only with the continued support of our donors and supporters will Trees for the Future be able to maintain and facilitate new projects in countries around the world. With your help we have planted millions of trees, in hundreds of communities located in developing nations. Without you, none of this would have been possible, so we ask that you continue to support us as we continue to restore degraded lands and work towards a paradigm shift in agricultural production.

We thank you for your support!

Thank You

summer 2011 newsletter

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planting trees

multipurpose trees

quarterly newsletter

varieties of fruit trees

sustainable use of trees

johnny ipilseed news

mawenzi secondary school

tema secondary school