Our nursery in El Porvenir, El Salvador is in full bloom! Michel enjoys caring for the trees with her mom, María, who works at the nursery. Michel is holding a Golden Trumpet (cortez blanco), an important timber tree in Latin America and also a popular ornamental.
We love to see the future environmentalists of El Salvador planting trees and caring for the local environment!
Learn more about some of the tree species we plant at our website.
Posted in Photo of the Week
Tagged cortez blanco, El Salvador, Golden Trumpet, reforestation
Posted in Newsletters
Tagged cleantech, El Salvador, green job training, Haiti, reforestation, solar energy
Foundation Beyond Belief (FBB) is a charitable foundation created to focus, encourage and demonstrate generosity in the secular humanist community. FBB highlights five charitable organizations per quarter. Their 1,300+ members join by signing up for a monthly automatic donation in the amount of their choice, then set up personal profiles to indicate how they would like their contribution distributed among the featured causes.
Trees, Water & People was selected as a 2013 second quarter beneficiary in the “Natural World” category for our “unique approach to protecting our natural world.”
“Not only is the work Trees, Water, & People doing worthwhile, but the model they’ve put together is something that, if replicated, could result in more culturally competent programs throughout our world.”
Among other considerations, beneficiaries are chosen for efficiency, effectiveness, moderate size (annual budget under $10 million), compatibility with humanist focus on mutual care of this world and this life, and geographic diversity. All categories feature secular organizations with the exception of “Challenge the Gap,” which gives members the option of supporting one progressive, non-proselytizing religious organization each quarter.
Thank you to Foundation Beyond Belief! We are honored to be a Q2 beneficiary.
We recently received this letter from Armando Hernandez Juarez, our long-time partner in El Salvador and Director of Arboles y Agua para el Pueblo. Armando is a leader in environmental conservation in Central America and we are honored to work with him. His words meant so much to all of us here at Trees, Water & People that we thought we would them with you too!
(Letter translated by Sebastian Africano)
TWP’s International Director, Sebastian Africano (left) and Armando Hernandez Juarez (right) stand with a clean cookstove beneficiary in El Salvador.
Dear Richard Fox and our family at Trees, Water & People,
My sincere congratulations on celebrating 15 years of achievements, contribution to the environment and thus to this land that gives us life, food and clothing.
What better way to celebrate 15 years of TWP than with the satisfaction we get from raising the dignity of the people whom we support with your projects, and with the tireless effort and human sensitivity with which the TWP family does its work.
On this occasion I also take other opportunity to warmly greet another of the pioneers of this work, I refer to Mr. Stuart Conway; a great benefactor and visionary, as his efforts have led to concrete works in our country El Salvador, benefiting a large number of families and communities through the establishment and production of countless trees that have protected groundwater resources, climate and forest recovery in general, as well as the provision of stoves that have actually contributed to improving the socioeconomic conditions of families have benefited from this project.
I do not want it to go unnoticed that the unconditional efforts of the TWP family have also helped reduce pollution levels and therefore prevent infectious diseases in families and communities who have been favored with latrines projects.
It is gratifying that our work in El Salvador through TWP leaves a trail of impact in communities and even public and private institutions and service organizations such as the Peace Corps Office who use our support to develop projects that benefit the target population of their programs.
Trees, Water & People Family, may the fifteen years that we celebrate on this occasion be multiplied continually.
Respectfully, if you will allow me, receive my thanks for being part of TWP.
Attentively,
Armando Hernandez Juarez
“Ultimately, the decision to save the environment must come from the human heart. The key point is a call for a genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion, and clear awareness.” – The Dalai Lama
We wish you a very happy and healthy Earth Day!
Today is extra special for Trees, Water & People because we are also celebrating our 15th year of helping people and the planet. We are so thankful for the generosity of our many friends and donors who have supported our projects since 1998.
We hope you will join us in a bEARTHday celebration by helping us plant trees in Latin America! Every $1 plants a tree –> Donate here.
Posted in reforestation
Tagged Earth Day, latin america, plant trees, reforestation
by Sebastian Africano, International Director
A community tree nursery in Central Guatemala that produces tens of thousands of tree seedlings each year.
It’s amazing to say that I’m writing this post from a tropical country where it snowed last week, and tomorrow I’ll be returning to my home in Colorado, where it’s been in the 50′s and dry for what seems like weeks. Guatemala is a country I am just getting acquainted with after eight years working in Central America, and with which I’ve become fascinated, thanks to our budding relationship with La Asociación de Forestería Comunitaria de Guatemala Ut’z Che’.
Ut’z Ché (“Good Tree” in the indigenous Quiché dialect) was formed five years ago to advocate for the broad and permanent involvement of civil society in preserving the forests of Guatemala. There are a number of incentives at work in Guatemala to protect the country’s remaining forests; most of these incentives are accessible only at the macro level – in other words, inaccessible to the hundreds of community-based organizations (CBOs) that engage in reforestation or forest preservation in their areas of operation.
Ut’z Ché acts as an umbrella group to 32 of these CBOs, helping them access funds, incentives, or programs for which they are clearly eligible, but which remain out of reach. My favorite expression of their efforts is the re-definition of the internationally known mechanism REDD, to read: Reducing Exclusion in the Discussion of Deforestation.
A two-burner, clean cookstove built by TWP and Ut’z Che’ in a rural community of Central Guatemala.
Trees, Water & People began working with Ut’z Ché in 2011 to support several community nurseries, livelihood projects and cookstove improvements within Ut’z Ché’s network. Through this partnership, we’ve started a working relationship with four of Ut’z Ché’s CBO members in Central Guatemala, and have begun to deepen our support for their reforestation and clean-energy goals. Last year alone, TWP supported the planting of 50,000 trees and built 25 clean cookstoves within the Ut’z Che’ network.
As I sit at Ut’z Ché’s yearly board meeting, I am particularly impressed that two-thirds of the more than 30 people here are leaders from the very communities Ut’z Ché serves, largely women and youth, and that all are given space to speak, present, and comment on organizational budgets, strategic plans, fundraising objectives and progress of ongoing projects. This is a stellar example of involving “el pueblo” in its own development, and creating leadership capacity from within to reach a common goal.
I am thrilled with the progress of this partnership so far, and see great collaborations to come. We hope you will support our growing work with Ut’z Ché and the communities they serve in 2013 and beyond.
Community members in La Bendición, Guatemala bring maize (corn) to the mill to be ground for flour.
Did you know that 1 in 3 women worldwide live without a toilet? In Haiti, only 10% of rural populations and less than 25% of those in cities have access to adequate sanitation facilities, by far the lowest coverage in the Western Hemisphere.
We are working with Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL) in Haiti to “close the loop and transform the poop”! This project uses “humanure” from SOIL’s EcoSan composting toilets to fertilize thousands of fruit trees that will be sold to local farmers for soil improvement projects and as a nutritious source of food. We need your help to fund this project. Every donation you make will be matched dollar for dollar!
Click photo to enlarge
A community volunteer hands out trees for a reforestation project sponsored by TWP’s Salvadoran counterpart Arboles y Agua para el Pueblo and the mayor of El Porvenir (gentleman in blue hat and sun glasses) north of El Porvenir, El Salvador.
Trees, Water & People (TWP) has supported reforestation activities in Nicaragua since 2001, partnering with Proleña to produce trees commercially for Forest Replacement Associations, made up of farmers who are local to each of three tree nurseries. The nurseries were strategically located in communities outside of Managua that are known for biomass dependent industries – one is ground zero for wood fired ceramics in the country, another houses quicklime producers (calcium oxide from limestone) and the third is in a region with a high level of firewood extraction for sale to the urban masses.
In all three areas where we conduct our work, TWP and Proleña have created a non-profit, independent association of consumers and producers of trees and linked them so that they can produce their fuel locally with fast-growing species, rather than depend on trees from Nicaragua’s dwindling forests. This creates a new income stream for local farmers, and reduces the carbon footprint of the participating industries. It also opens the door for engaging the community to plant fruit trees, hardwood trees, and fast-growing timber trees produced at the same nurseries.
Currently, farmers throughout the Caribbean and Meso-America are experiencing one of the worst droughts in recent memory. Rainy season is three months late, causing massive crop failures and putting pressure on other livelihood activities. While tragic, this is why TWP encourages farmers to diversify their income streams via tree planting and agro-forestry, because once trees are established, they require less irrigation and maintenance, and are more resilient than seasonal crops. As climate change rears its ugly head, we will continue to provide communities with strategies to mitigate the effects of climate change on their livelihoods and communities.
All together now…PLANT MORE TREES!
These Cause Tees will be funding TWP’s restoration efforts in the areas destroyed by the recent Colorado wildfires. With partners Wildlands Restoration Volunteers and Colorado Conservation Exchange, Trees, Water & People is leading the coalition of organizations that, together with your support, will be able to replant over 85,000 acres damaged by the wildfires.
Don’t miss your chance to get one of these limited edition Cause Tees! Visit www.causetee.org to order yours today.
