Happy Arbor Day!

In the past 16 years, we have worked with hundreds of communities throughout Central America and Haiti to plant more than 5 million trees. Our reforestation programs focus on establishing and maintaining tree nurseries, educating communities about the positive environmental impacts of reforestation, and strengthening economic development, both through conservation and the responsible management of forest resources. We work with existing local groups, schools, and communities in extremely low-income rural and peri-urban areas to provide guidance on how to plant, graft, and maintain their trees.

We could not do this work without our generous friends and supporters who donate to these important reforestation efforts. Thank you to everyone who has made a difference for people and the planet. We honor you on this Arbor Day!

$1 = 1 tree

To plant a tree today please visit our website and click on the “donate” button in the upper right-hand corner: www.treeswaterpeople.org

Guest Blog: SOIL and TWP Work Together to Plant Trees in Haiti

by Monica Roy, Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL)

Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods, or SOIL, is one of our reforestation partners in Haiti. In this new post, Monica Roy provides an update of the 10,000 Trees for Haiti project that donors helped us fund at the end of 2012.

It’s been quite a year so far for SOIL! Among our many activities, we’re currently building a new office for our Cap-Haitien team in order to be closer to the SOIL farm and to reduce our long-term operating costs, we’re continuing to scale up our innovative new social business model for providing affordable sanitation services in Haiti’s most impoverished urban communities, and we’re transforming over 20,000 gallons of human waste every month into rich, organic compost critical for agriculture and reforestation. We sell some of the compost to support our ongoing sanitation activities, but some of it is used at our tree nursery to grow healthy trees.

Thanks to the support of Trees, Water & People, SOIL’s reforestation projects in Haiti continue to have a positive impact on improving food security, increasing rural incomes, and fighting soil erosion.

We’re happy to announce that we’re now almost halfway to our goal of planting 10,000 trees. There were a few hold-ups figuring out the best strategy to plant trees with a higher rate of survival (those pesky goats!), but we are on track to finish planting by the end of the year. So far, we have collaborated with the Scouts of Haiti, schools, community organizations, and our neighbors near the farm. There has been lots of positive feedback and a growing wait list for people interested in planting trees in their communities.

In the SOIL nursery, we focus on seeding fruit trees, which provide so many additional benefits beyond just re-planting Haiti’s largely deforested land. Not only will these trees help stabilize soils, they will also provide shade, food to eat, and an income for local people.

In the coming months and years, we will continue working with schools, community groups, and entrepreneurs to plant more and more trees in ecologically vulnerable areas such as mountainsides and mangrove terrain along Haiti’s coastline. We’re committed to ensuring that not only are we planting more trees every year, but also that we’re following up to make sure those trees have a lasting positive benefit for Haiti’s soil, environment, and people.

We’re very excited to continue this work with Trees, Water, & People and we thank everyone in Haiti and around the world that have supported this effort.

Northern Haiti Tree Nursery Producing Thousands of Fruit Trees!

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Our friends at SOIL (Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods) sent some beautiful shots of their thriving tree nursery in northern Haiti, near the town of Labadee. In 2012, we partnered with SOIL, Positive Legacy, and Jam Cruise passengers to plant 10,000 fruit trees in this nursery. The trees are looking great and are making their way out to surrounding communities where they will be planted by families and local farmers.

Now, we are raising funds to keep this tree nursery going through 2013! The 10,000 Trees for Haiti campaign will support reforestation, community tree planting, and agricultural education in northern Haiti.

Would you like to help us plant 10,000 more trees in 2013? Make a donation to the “10,000 Trees for Haiti” campaign and it will be matched dollar for dollar!