Like Alice bumping into a talkative rabbit, two boys were startled by what they saw— a white stranger and big spider-like triangles of wood being walked across a steep field, a stone swinging on a string from each. They looked worried but after a moment’s hesitation, their curiosity took them down the rabbit hole. They found out what a plumb bob is and how it works to stake out a line of even elevation around a hill to make a terrace.
They didn’t go to school, they were too poor, but they had quick minds and when they returned the next day, this hill became their school. The staff became their teachers and together they did little experiments like pouring water on the ground to see what happens. It was beautiful to watch them figure out how to stop the water from washing the soil away. It was even more beautiful to see them a week later planting trees on the finished terraces.
Their arrival was unexpected but we wove them into our purpose because we have learned that while planting trees is vital, it’s the partnership with people that is the key to our success. More than 98% of the trees we plant survive.
That thought is the foundation of an ambitious project that will launch in January. It will plant one hundred thousand trees in a comprehensive program that will rescue sixty family farms, three hundred acres of degraded land, and the food supply of a thousand people. It will show what agroforestry looks like to people who have never known anything but bare mountains beyond bare mountains.
It is a big undertaking, but we have big advantages. After six years of doing this we know what works, we are trusted, and we have the capacity to get it done.
As we approach the New Year, I hope you feel the power of what will be achieved by ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND TREES… and MORE.
We are riders on the Earth together.
Rob Fisher, Executive Director
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