Meet Our Save Partner: Trees for the Future
Tell us a little bit about your organization, when and how did you get started?
Since 1989, Trees for the Future has been helping communities around the world plant trees. Through seed distribution, agroforestry training, and our country programs, we have empowered rural groups to restore tree cover to their lands. Planting trees protects the environment and helps to preserve traditional livelihoods and cultures for generations.
The Founder of Trees for the Future, Dave Deppner, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines in the 1970s, where he witnessed the human tragedy brought on by illegal logging and unsustainable land management systems. Working with community leaders in nearby villages, Dave and his wife Grace found ways to offer hope. They revitalized degraded lands by providing farmers with tree seed, technical training, and on-site planning assistance. People responded enthusiastically, and entire villages joined in, making great sacrifices to save their homes and way of life. After returning from their overseas assignments they continued what they had started, communicating by mail with rural community leaders and providing information, seeds, and training materials.
Trees for the Future was incorporated as a 501 (c) (3) public charity in Maryland on August 14, 1989. Over the years TREES has assisted thousands of communities in planting millions of trees, which have restored life to land that was previously degraded or abandoned. The trees provide food, fodder, fuel, fertilizer, and medicine for the farmers as well as biodiversity for the landscape.
Where are you planting fruit trees on behalf of Project 7?
Trees for the Future is currently planting Avocado, Citrus and Guava trees with communities around Cerro Azul Meambar National park in the Central Portion of Honduras, Central America.
Why is planting fruit trees important?
Fruit provides many important vitamins, especially Vitamin C and the B-complex, which are lacking in the diet of poor populations of Central America. Avocados also provide essential fatty acids including the important Omega 6 fatty acids which are also lacking in diets low in fish and meat. Fruits such as citrus and Cashew apples provide poor populations with healthy low-cost alternatives to sodas and artificial drinks. Fruit, cultivation also provides a means of income for families, as it provides production between major harvests such as the corn or coffee harvests.
Is planting trees all you do?
Trees for the Future, provides a complete package of training in agroforestry practices in the areas we work in, helping people to plant trees and to learn the practices to best manage those trees, as well as training in appropriate technologies such as fuel efficient stoves which lower the use of firewood thus preserving the existing forests.
Besides buying SAVE the Earth products, how can individuals and organizations support the work you are doing?
Educate themselves about agroforestry and sustainable agriculture by downloading our free agroforestry training manual, join the Peace Corps, donate to help us plant more trees, or join our mailing list.
What is your favorite Project 7 product?
Coffee, because it is a product which is produced by smallholder subsistence farmers in Latin America and it can offer a way for them to pull themselves out of poverty without depleting or destroying their natual environment.
Oh, and don't forget. Only 3 more days of our Save the Earth Twitter and Facebook campaign. For every new follower and fan we are planting an additional tree with Trees for the Future or another one of our other Save partners!