Trees journal 2011 volume 69

Free to ITF supporters

Journal of the International Tree Foundation

Volume 69 January/February 2011

Roots of change How one ITF partner brought green back to the fields of Mali Life among the Trees The people whose survival depends on our forests

Short film spotlights ITF success Heritage hedgerows Guernsey kids get planting Beehives in Ghana

UN Year of Forests 2011

IS HOPE DAWNING for the world’s forests?

t a h t t f the gi g n i v i g n o keeps

£5

pays for 500 tree seeds in Uganda*

£25

pays for ten saplings to help regenerate trees in sub-Saharan villages

To donate go to

Your gift to the In ternational Tree Foundation will g o where it is needed most to p lant trees and provide a route o ut of poverty.

It will increase aw areness of our forests and the sp ecies that live in them. Few gifts c an do so much.

£50

pays for two hours airtime on Ethiopian radio, increasing awareness of deforestation

£250

pays for forestry training to stabilise dunes in the Dogon region of Mali

eque to rg/donate or send a ch n.o tio da un fo ee ltr na io n, KT1 9UA, www.internat PO Box 1000a, Surbito n, tio da un Fo ee Tr l na io Internat 00 call us on 01342 7173 ionaltreefoundation.org or email info@internat *Examples of how your donation can be used

CONTENTS

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Gathering frui t Save at Mol dePaul Whalely anth farmW ekol sceho Patron His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales Founder Dr Richard St Barbe Baker OBE President Sir Ghilean Prance Vice Presidents Cynthia Campbell Savours Professor Julian Evans E Green MBE Susan Hampshire Sir Bernard de Hoghton, BT, DL Satish Kumar The Earl of Lindsay WE Matthews OBE Trustees David H Gore David Elliott Kenton Rogers Bland Tomkinson Chairman Spencer G Keys Vice Chairman Ruth Yeoman Director Lorraine Dunk Staff Sarah Leeming Helen Molyneux Zoe Sanders John Wyles Trees is published annually by the International Tree Foundation, a registered charity (no 1106269).

Published by Think 20-23 Woodside Place, Glasgow G3 7QF 0141 582 1280 www.thinkpublishing.co.uk Editor Jack Kibble-White Contributing Editor Clare Harris Sub-editor Andrew Littlefield Design Matthew Ball Publisher John Innes

front cover Sunrise over a misty rainforest in BORNEO, CORBIS, MATT HOPKINS

International Tree Foundation Sandy Lane, Crawley Down, West Sussex RH10 4HS, UK Telephone 01342 717300 Email info@international treefoundation.org Website www.internationaltree foundation.org

IN this issue

WELCOME

This year is a big one for forests. After the International Year of Biodiversity in 2010, we’re now celebrating the United Nations International Year of Forests.

At the COP10 biodiversity summit in Nagoya, world leaders pledged to half species loss by 2020. And with around two thirds of the world’s species supported by trees, this focus on forests gives us a great opportunity to bring forest conservation centre stage.

For this issue we’ve asked The Economist’s James Astill to report on how governments are backing forest conservation (page 9), while on page 19, Moctar Sacande from Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank describes some of the latest tree-seed finds.

Meanwhile, on page 16, Joanna Eede, from tribal people’s movement Survival, provides a portrait of communities whose lives are bound up with the trees around them. Closer to home, we hear about the Wiltshire villagers who are reviving their own much-loved hedgerows (page 23).

Over the past year, our own focus has been on Africa, and specifically West, East and the Horn of Africa, where growing populations threaten crucial tree cover. You can read about just a few of these projects from page 4, and on page 14 we hear from one woman whose life in Mali has been informed by the desire to bring trees and communities closer together.

As always, we’re keen to hear the views of our members. To that end, we hope you’ll take the time to complete the 2011 survey that begins on page 7.

You may also want to make a note in your diary that our next AGM, for supporters and members, will take place on the 25 June 2011, venue to be advised.

Wherever you are, I hope that you enjoy your forest year.

Lorraine Dunk, Director info@internationaltreefoundation.org www.internationaltreefoundation.org

4 YEAR IN REVIEW Updates from International Tree Foundation partners around the world 9 THE BIG ISSUE To mark International Year of Forests, The Economist’s James Astill assesses whether reforestation schemes are making a difference 12 Gallery The ash is an English classic 14 ITF People Mary Allen on her work with ITF partner organisation Sahel Eco 16 FOREST LIFE Joanna Eede writes about the people whose lives depend upon forests 19 Under the Canopy A window into the work of Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank 20 Project Focus We take a look at the work of some of our regularlyfunded partners, with Molly and Paul farm school, the Cluny Wildlife Trust in Malawi and Wiltshire’s Poulshot Village Trust

This issue’s contributors Joanna Eede Joanna is editorial adviser for Survival International, and has written widely on tribal peoples across the world, including for ITF on page 16.

MARY ALLEN As Executive Secretary for ITF partner Sahel Eco, Mary talks about reforesting West Africa on page 14.

Apollo Saku Apollo is Head Tutor at the Molly and Paul farm school in Uganda. He tells us about the school’s time in the limelight on page 20.

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YEAR IN FOCUS

Sweet solutions

Ghana’s Development Concern Centre, with the help of ITF, is working with women in the Bagliga and Tamale regions to set up sustainable beehives. Honey is a popular crop in the area, with 85% of rural people regularly harvesting it.

But traditional harvesting methods rely on fire to burn out the bees, which, in the process, can destroy trees.

DECC has provided 30 hives so far, with 30 women trained in sustainable beekeeping. The hives are placed below trees for shelter and the villagers protect those trees, knowing that without them the bees won’t make such good honey. With the right training, purer, more marketable honey is being produced, which helps to improve income too.

DECC hopes to extend the scheme, and are helping to plant an Acacia nursery to grow more honey trees for the future. As the desert spreads rapidly into Northern Ghana, time to Acacia Tree safeguard trees is running out, so initiatives such as this one are vital.

a million It’s been a busy year for Joliba Trust, a UK-based charity working to promote and encourage reforestation in Mali. Since receiving a grant from the International Tree Foundation in 2009, the charity has helped to plant over a million trees in the fifth region of Mali.

In the Fulani community alone, 200 Acacia pots were planted in the local tree nursery, helping to secure the future of this vital tree that

www.deccghana.org

joliba trust, biada ghana, music cyles

Malawi gets green and clean Lilongwe Wildlife Centre is best known for rescuing and rehabilitating Malawi’s wild animals, but this year it has been encouraging local people to find a greener way to get the cooking done.

The Green and Clean project, funded by International Tree Foundation, aims to promote more sustainable ways of producing 4 | trees | Volume 69

firewood, in the process reducing the pressure on natural forests.

Together with local communities they’ve developed woodlots with trees for use as timber and firewood. They’ve also been running classes on making alternative fuels, such as briquettes made from recycled paper or leaf litter.

Established in 2006, the Wildlife Centre is situated

in the Malawian capital of Lilongwe, perfect for getting the sustainable message across to city dwellers. Thanks to the Green and Clean project, communities around Lilongwe will be able to see how new habits can be beneficial for the people, the wildlife and their shared environment. www.lilongwewildlife centre.org

Leptadenia cuttings are used es to stabilise sand dun

trees for Mali provides shelter and staple food. Members of the Fulani Women’s Association were also able to attend workshops on how to deal with the challenges of climate change and loss of tree resources.

Elsewhere in the area, Joliba has led training sessions on keeping existing trees growing healthily through sustainable pruning and management.

And Joliba has had a helping hand from an unexpected source. Two student

musicians from the School of Oriental and Asian Studies, Mikaela Parrack and Imran Khan, cycled from London to Mali with the aim of gathering musical inspiration and raising funds along the way. The money they’ve raised will go to support the work of Joliba Trust.

Find out more Read about the musicians on: www.musiccycles.wordpress. com, and about Joliba Trust at www.jolibatrust.org.uk

Mango tree planting: a vital cash crop

A mango orchard replaces land ravished by bush fire

Fulani women give thanks

A mini tree nursery

Imran Khan from Music Cycles

All go for mangoes Ghana’s farmers have been given a boost thanks to the work of ITF partner Biada (Bagurugu Integrated Agro-Forestry Development Association).

Twelve farmers, from the Bagurugu, Tamaligu and Zankali communities in the Tamale region, worked closely with the charity to plant mango seedlings in land that had been ravaged by bush burning and other unsustainable farming practices.

The farmers

used 200 mango seedlings for training, and grafted a further 1,000 seedlings that will grow to become important cash crops.

In an area that lives with extreme poverty every day, the project was extremely welcome, enabling farmers to find new and more futurefriendly ways of earning income. In all, over 100 farmers in and around Tamale have been assisted by Biada, boding well for a more profitable future for the area.

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GLOBAL UPDATE

Forests on film to raise awareness

School pupils in Guernsey show off their new insect hotel

green on the screen

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Guernsey Men of the Trees is replanting its heritage trees with the help of local schoolchildren. Organisers Andy McCutcheon and Vanessa Crispini-Adams tell us more

How long has Guernsey Men of the Trees been around?

We started off as a branch of Men of the Trees in 1935. In 1993 we became an independent society, and this year we affiliated ourselves to the International Tree Foundation.

What are the challenges for trees in Guernsey?

During the Nazi occupation in the Second World War, most of our old trees were cut down for firewood and cattle feed. We’ve got one or two left, including a fabulous 300-year-old sweet chestnut in St Peter Port, one of our oldest trees.

The Little Trees Project is one of the schemes you’re involved in. Tell us about it.

Little Trees Project started in May 2010 to get trees planted in school grounds.

Our first project was to plant a woodland area in St Martin’s Primary. There were about 80 children and each one got to plant a tree.

What do the children get out of the project?

The project is as hands-on as possible. The children learn about the

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woodlands and the soil, as well as the wildlife they’ll begin to see when they’ve planted the trees. They feel like the project’s their own.

What sort of trees did you plant at the first school?

The children planted native oaks, chestnuts, rowans and fruit trees. We’re lucky that most of the primary schools on Guernsey have quite large grounds, so there’s plenty of room. We’re planning to plant in five schools this spring term, and then ultimately the rest of Guernsey’s 13 primary schools. Ideally we want a child to plant a tree every year they’re at school.

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www.trees.gg

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A planting takes place

More online at www.forestfilmfestival.org

IN BRIEF n Thanks to an ITF grant, Sir William Turner’s Hospital in North Yorkshire is now able to replenish trees in its much-loved garden.

A peaceful haven at the historic hospital, the garden receives around 2,000 visitors a year. n Anyone who’s planted a tree will be in good company this year, as Defra and the Forestry Commission launch The Big Tree Plant. The planting campaign, which kicked off in December 2010, aims to get

people across England planting and caring for trees in their towns, cities and neighbourhoods.

Find out more at thebigtreeplant. direct.gov.uk n A leading British design company that supplies cutlery to Downing Street and Masterchef has become one of ITF’s newest corporate sponsors.

Studio William names each of its designs after trees, so the link to ITF was a natural one.

Find them at www. studiowilliamshop. co.uk

vanessa crispini-adams

GOING BACK TO OUR ROOTS

his year, to mark United Nations International Year of Forests, the UN has teamed up with Jackson Hole Wildlife Festival to organise the International Forest Film Festival.

Jackson Hole has been hosting the world’s best wildlife films since 1991, and this year they hope to see some wonderful depictions of forests from around the world.

The winning films from all six categories, which include ‘Forest Hero’ and ‘Issues and Solutions’, will be presented to delegates of all 192 UN countries in February before being screened around the world. The festival aims to raise awareness on the importance of forests and how they affect people and the planet they inhabit.

SURVEY

The International Tree Foundation Survey 2011 As we continue with our many projects taking place around the world, clear communication is essential. To ensure that we’re getting the balance right, we’d like to ask you to take a few moments to complete the following survey.

These findings will help to provide you with the information that you want, when you need it.

1 Are you: ■ Male ■ Female 2 Which type of International Tree Foundation supporter are you?

■ Adult ■ Adult (overseas) ■ Junior (under 16) ■ Concession ■ Life ■ Corporate supporter ■ Not a supporter (please specify below how you received the journal)

3 How long have you been a supporter of International Tree Foundation?

■ Less than 1 year ■ 1-3 years ■ 4-5 years ■ More than 5 years 4 What age are you?

■ Under 18 years ■ 18-24 years ■ 25-34 years ■ 35-44 years ■ 45-54 years ■ 55-64 years ■ 65 years and over 5 How much of each issue of Trees journal do you normally read?

■ All ■ Most ■ Some articles

6 Which types of articles in the magazine are of particular interest to you? (tick all that apply) ■ Year in Review and other news ■ Features ■ ITF People and other interviews ■ Project Focus 7 What would you like to see in Trees journal that is not currently included?

8 How would you rate Trees overall as a journal?

■ Excellent ■ Average ■ Good ■ Poor 9 How many adults read your copy?

■1 ■2 ■3 ■4 ■ 5+ 10 How long do you normally keep your copy for?

■ A day or two ■ Until the next issue arrives ■ A week ■ I keep old issues for future reference ■ A month 11 Would you prefer to read Trees journal in an online version instead of in printed form?

■ Yes ■ No 12 Are you a subscriber to our e-bulletin? (if no, go to Q17) ■ Yes ■ No 13 When you receive the e-bulletin, how much of it do you read?

■ All of it ■ Just the first few lines ■ Around half of it ■ None of it

Volume 69 | trees | 7

SURVEY

14 What do you think about the frequency of the e-bulletin?

■ About right ■ Not frequent enough ■ Too frequent

19 Please specify what other periodicals or magazines you read on a regular basis

15 When you receive an e-bulletin from us do you pass it on to other people you know?

■ Yes, every time ■ Rarely ■ Sometimes ■ Never 16 What would you like to see featured in the e-bulletin that is not currently included?

8 | trees | Volume 69

Many thanks for taking the time to complete this questionnaire. Your views are important in creating the best possible publications for supporters. If you wish to enter the Prize Draw please write your name and address in the spaces below. The draw will take place on 25 March 2011.

Name

20 Do you have any additional comments or suggestions you would like to make in relation to Trees journal or the International Tree Foundation e-bulletin?

Address

Fill out the survey and WIN!

17 Trees journal is sent out once a year in printed form. Would you prefer us to send you smaller but more frequent printed newsletters about our work throughout the year, with content similar to the e-bulletin?

■ Yes, twice a year ■ Yes, every quarter ■ No, the yearly journal is fine 18 What newspapers do you normally read, in print or online?

■ The Guardian ■ Daily Telegraph ■ The Independent ■ The Times ■ Daily Mail ■ Other (please specify below)

And finally

Please send your completed forms to: 2011 Survey, International Tree Foundation, Sandy Lane, Crawley Down, West Sussex RH10 4HS

We have three copies of Woodlanders: New Life in Britain’s Forests, up for grabs for three of our lucky survey respondents.

This handsome and inspirational hardback book is for anyone who has discovered a personal connection with woods, and is a wonderful reminder of where we come from.

Woodlanders: New Life in Britain’s Forests is edited by Ian Edwards and published by Saraband.

For more information visit www.saraband.net and search for “Woodlanders”

THE BIG ISSUE

Dense rainforest provides a solution to cutting emissions

shutterstock (all)

Is hope here For trees?

As we mark UN International Year of Forests, The Economist’s James Astill examines the progress of REDD+, a global scheme to reduce deforestation

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helicopter ride across I n d o n e s i a’s p r o v i n c e of East Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo, suggests just how difficult it is to protect the forest.

Where, in recent memory, lush green rainforest appeared beneath drifting wisps of cloud, roads have now been built, trees cleared and agricultural plantations established.

Coal-barges and tankers ply the rivers that snake inland from the Pacific Ocean, leaving black oil slicks in the pale-brown water. Just small patches of forest remain, with greying logs scattered like old matchsticks at their edges.

It is a dismal scene. But Indonesia’s government considers the razing of East Volume 69 | trees | 9

THE BIG ISSUE

Kalimantan’s forests to be progress.

About a quarter of Indonesian output comes from forestry, agriculture and mining, all of which involve felling trees. Over a third of East Kalimantan’s inhabitants are employed in these industries and the province is one of Indonesia’s richest.

With fat profits to be made from clearance, forest laws – that reserve some areas for national park and mandate sustainable logging in others – are often flouted. Much of the clearance in Indonesia is illegal: a recent study of neighbouring West Kalimantan found that, between 1985 and 2001, 63% of the lowland parts of its national parks was illegally cleared.

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his suggests a bitter truth.

Failing a remarkable change in the way that Indonesia views and manages its forests, most of what remains of them will be cleared. That would be catastrophic. It would put thousands of unique species at risk. It would also massively increase the greenhouse-gas emissions of a country that, almost entirely because of deforestation, currently emits more than any other except China and the US. Globally, this order of destruction is all too typical. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, in the past decade the world has lost around 13 million hectares of forest, an area the size of England, each year. Most was tropical forest. That does not include clearance that is, perhaps wrongly, considered impermanent – including an arboreal onslaught in Russia, which REDD stands for has more forest than any Reducing Emissions other country. Between from Deforestation and 2000 and 2005, some Forest Degradation, a 55,500 square miles of scheme that aims to pay Russian forest (14% of the developing countries total) was destroyed by for not chopping down logging or fire. swathes of vital forests.

So the outlook for The plus in REDD+ forests, especially tropical signifies a greater ones, is grim. Nonetheless, focus on peoplein the past year or so, some centred conservation. encouraging steps have

What is REDD+?

been taken to improve it.

They do not yet constitute the needed transformation, but it is possible to hope that they may lead to this.

Most encouraging is the progress on REDD+. This is the international effort to compensate developing countries, especially tropical ones, for not clearing forest. Many developing countries can’t afford not to clear land for commercial agriculture or mining.

Their urgent priority is to boost economic growth and create jobs for their poor and 10 | trees | Volume 69

swelling populations.

A nd even those who are willing to undertake ser iou s conser vat ion measures often lack the necessary means to do so. It is therefore essential that richer countries provide these incentives, understanding that it is in their own interests. Reducing deforestation is the cheapest large-scale emissions-cutting strategy that we have. According to a range of estimates, mitigating emissions through forest conservation generally costs less than $10 per tonne of avoided carbon emission.

By comparison, capturing and storing emissions from power stations is estimated to cost $75-115 per tonne.

REDD+ is a response to that economic

REDD+ could help protect the Amazonian rainforests

logic. It is hoped that it could halve global deforestation by 2020. Having gained the support of many governments at 2009’s climate summit in Copenhagen, the scheme is envisaged as a global payment scheme, for which over 60 developing forest countries could be eligible.

To maintain momentum, a 58-nation group, the so-called REDD+ Partnership, was convened in Oslo in May 2010. It was charged with negotiating the finer points of the scheme, including several controversial ones, ahead of a hoped-for global REDD+ agreement. To get conservation moving on the ground, meanwhile, half a dozen rich countries, including Norway, Britain and America, also pledged to provide developing countries with $4.5 billion by 2012. Having previously, in 2008, pledged a billion dollars to Brazil for this purpose, Norway also

offered the same to Indonesia. It proceeded to announce a two-year moratorium on the granting of licences for commercial deforestation, starting in January 2011.

In the tough history of forest conservation and the fight to avert serious climate change, these were momentous steps.

Almost inevitably, progress has since slowed, however. Ahead of COP-16 in Cancun in December 2010, the REDD+ negotiations were dogged by uncertainty and disagreement on several topics.

One of the most controversial concerned the affect of REDD+ programmes on forestdwellers, of whom there may be over a billion. On the face of it, their lot has improved in recent years, with increased recognition of their property and other rights in many countries. For example, Brazil has formally made over 110 million hectares of Amazon to its surviving indigenous folk. Yet there remains a fear that REDD+ may reverse that progress, by inspiring tropical governments and their crony friends to launch a grab for control of forests.

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nother uncertaint y surrounds exactly how REDD+ money will be raised. Rich and poor countries accept that, to have any chance of success, the scheme may eventually require tens of billions of dollars a year. Ahead of Copenhagen, it was assumed that this could be raised on rich-country carbon markets, on which ‘forest carbon credits’ – equivalent to tonnes of averted carbon emissions – would be traded. But the collapse of an effort to establish a cap-and-trade regime in America has made this much more unlikely. The cash might instead be provided by some sort of fund, yet quite how this might be raised, managed and accessed remains unclear.

Indonesia, brief ly a source of forest optimism, has meanwhile given more cause for concern. There are suspicions that a welter of existing deforestation licences, granted ahead of the moratorium, may render it largely ineffective. And there are disagreements over how REDD+ lucre will be allotted and accounted for. These obstacles are hardly surprising. Until there is greater confidence among poor countries

THERE REMAINS A FEAR THAT REDD+ MAY REVERSE GAINS MADE by FOREST PEOPLES

Congo gorillas are threatened

that REDD+ will deliver the promised billions, they are unlikely to embrace it fully.

And that promise is probably also hostage to a broader global agreement on climate change action.

Despite the hurdles, however, movements towards REDD+ continue and in the forests of Indonesia, Brazil and elsewhere, important preparatory steps are being taken.

In East Kalimantan, for example,local officials are working with American greens from the Nature Conservancy to bring REDD+ to the district of Berau, 70% of which is still covered in lush rainforest. Viewed from the air, it is a wonderful sight – a canopy of infinite green shades, streaked with flashes of orange or yellow, where an ironwood tree or flowering liana shows through it.

The would-be defenders of this wondrous habitat are devising a local REDD+ strategy. It will feature tested conservation measures, such as promoting low-impact logging and stiffening the policing of protected areas, as well as effective ways of evaluating their success. The hope is that, by the time serious REDD+ funds flow, Berau will be ready to bid for them, spend them well, and so protect its incomparable forests. However fragile a prospect that may seem, everyone should pray for it.

Read more of James Astill’s articles at www.economist.com

Congo Forest action In 2010, the International Tree Foundation funded its first project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), second only to the Amazon as the largest rainforest on Earth.

The rainforest that surrounds the river Congo is home to tens of millions of people, animals and plant species, some found nowhere else on the planet. Around two thirds of the forest is to be found in the DRC, but large swathes also cover parts of Gabon, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, the Central African Republic and the Republic of Congo.

The Congo forest is under threat; logging companies have currently earmarked an area the size of Spain for deforestation.

As with everything we do, our challenge is to develop ways to support local communities to maintain their livelihoods, as well as the forest itself, and to manage this irreplaceable natural resource responsibly.

Keep an eye on our website www.internationaltreefoundation.org for more details.

Lorraine Dunk, Director, International Tree Foundation

Logging is putting wildlife under threat

Can REDD+ save scenes like these?

Volume 69 | trees | 11

GALLERY

A sporting chance

The ubiquitous ash tree is perfect for all kinds of recreation

Often exceeding 40 metres in height, the common ash has a distinct thick, cracked bark and large, winged seeds that help cast them far from the base of the trunk.

Occurring throughout Europe, the common ash is a useful and versatile tree, excellent for firewood. Both tough and flexible, it is used in all manner of objects, including hockey sticks, oars and snooker cues, and was once used to make longbows.

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ITF PEOPLE

Firewood for the future Mary Allen, Executive Secretary of the charity Sahel Eco, takes a practical approach to tree management

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or Mary Allen, change is something that happens in the long-term. She’s been living and working in the West African country of Mali for the last 24 years, and has seen her adoptive homeland go from drought and uncertainty to stability, fertility and a brighter future.

Mary works for the Bamako-based charity Sahel Eco, one of ITF’s key partners.

Already, Sahel Eco, working with a range of other charities in the region, has rolled out a tree management strategy in Bankass (see our article in Trees 2009).

Now, as part of its Regreening the Sahel project, the charity will be able to spread

t ree management and plant ing to the city of Mopti.

“There are very few trees around Mopti,” explains Mary, “but there are fields and livestock, so there’s potential.” Working in the 28 villages of the Sokura commune, which ring the growing city of Mopti, Sahel Eco will encourage farmers to grow and maintain trees on their own land for use as sustainable firewood, as well as to put nutrients back into the land and to cultivate fruit and animal feed.

The added challenge for Mary and her 30-strong team is to couple the tree management in the countryside with awareness-raising in the town, where wood for fuel is vital, but comes at a high cost.

“People in the town see the wood but they don’t think about where it comes from,” says Mary. “They just see the wood and charcoal getting more expensive every year. The firewood is coming from over 100km away already. For me, there’s a problem here in just saying we should cut down on using wood for fuel, which is fine, but the real question is how are we going to supply that wood sustainably in the future?”

The challenge of gathering firewood is not a new one in the Sahel. Wood, whether used in its natural state or as charcoal, remains the primary source of fuel in the region and as populations grow (the Mopti region is currently home to over two million people, nearly double what it was in the 1970s), that fuel gets scarcer and further away, with trees that are crucial to protecting fragile soils and preventing famine often ending up on the back of a truck.

For Mary, the argument for growing sustainable firewood close to home is similar to that of the local food movement, currently gaining footing in the UK. It’s an argument that’s about combating climate change, but it’s also about something that’s ruled her approach to both life and work – practicality.

Having studied environmental science at Southampton University, Mary’s first job was at the British National Coal

Sue cavanna, barbara nicholls

Sahel Eco works in partnership with the Malian people

14 | trees | Volume 69

A Malian man ponders the future

Mary Allen with Sahel Eco staff and farmers

Board. At that stage, she says, she wasn’t really involved in environmental issues, working instead on computer programming for the Coal Board’s operational research department. “After five years I thought it wasn’t for me,” she admits. She returned to college to complete a masters in soil and water engineering, and followed it up w ith a stint of volunteering with International Service, leading her to the Sahel.

“I came out here in 1986 when people had just been through two very severe droughts,” Mary remembers.

“There was also a lot of work done at the time to figure out just how normal these droughts were.” Since the end of the 1960s, the region had been getting progressively drier and more variable in climate. It meant that the people of Senegal, Mali and other countries across the Sahel belt had an approach to life that spread their assets and minimised risk, something that surprised her at first. “They took a lot of decisions that to someone from Europe didn’t seem the most profitable, or the most logical.

My favourite tree Acacia Faidherbia “This tree is known locally as a Balanzan, and it’s very important for fertilising soils and producing seeds for animal feed,” says Mary. “It has a central role in the areas of the Sahel where I first arrived, as it’s a crucial tree for food security and for local people.”

“People in the town see the wood but they don’t think about where it comes from” But it was all about reducing their risks – people very much had on their minds that there might be a terrible drought tomorrow, so they weren’t putting all their eggs in one basket.”

After her time with International Service, Mary went to Senegal to work for the Bakel Federation, an influential group of farmer organisations led by Jaabe So, who coauthored the seminal history of rural life in the Sahel, A Claim to Land by the River (1996). His wife and fellow author was the well-known anthropologist Adrian Adams, who had been living in rural Senegal and documenting the adversities that Sahel farmers faced since the 1970s.

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f ter this inspiring i n t r o du c t i o n t o t h e challenges of the Sahel, there followed a series of consultancy contracts, until 1994 when Mary began working for the Mali branch of the drylands charity SOS Sahel International UK. In 2004 it became an independent national NGO called Sahel Eco. “We’ve always been a small organisation, and that gave us a lot of autonomy,” says Mary. “We’re not tied into too much organisational policy, so we could be fairly innovative in what we were doing. We’ve always put a lot of emphasis on working closely with local people and making sure they were in charge or steering what we were doing. A lot of our work has changed enormously since we started, but we can always see what the next step is.”

The charity’s move from being a branch of an international organisation to a national body in its own right meant it could take a long-term view, Mary explains. “When we were an international NGO we had funders asking what our exit strategy was, but when you’re talking about resource management, change happens slowly over time. There might not necessarily be impact showing in an area for years.”

The charity is now more able to work in partnership, too, with Sahel Eco playing a lead role among several other drylands projects working across the Sahel belt. And in the Sokura commune, Mary and her team hope to join forces with a French charity working on sustainable cooking stoves.

Married, w it h one son and t wo stepchildren, Mary has no plans to leave the country that has given her so much. What she loves about life in Mali, she says, is the same as what she likes about working there – “the freedom to invent what it is you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it, and then see it through to the end.

“It’s immensely satisfying to go back and see trees that were planted or protected 10, 15 years ago,” she adds. “Sometimes, the things we thought were going to make the difference aren’t always the things that do.

It’s nice to be able to learn from what we did and respect the things that cropped up along the way – that’s what happens with being in one place for a long time.”

Find out more about Sahel Eco and the Regreening the Sahel project online at www.saheleco.net www.internationaltreefoundation.org Volume 69 | trees | 15

FOREST LIFE

A BILLION VOICES

The Penan people rely on the rainforest

Joanna Eede, Editorial Consultant for Survival International, reminds us that the world’s forests support the lives of myriad different communities

Logging levels a forest

Penan children relaxing in their rainforest home

T

hat the world’s rainforests have a long breath of life is well known. That they store water, regulate rainfall and contain over half the planet’s biodiversity is well documented. That their deforestation releases more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than all cars, planes and ships together – which makes their preservation critical in the struggle against climate change – is also undisputed.

What is less well known is that nearly all rainforests are inhabited. In the desire of conservationists to preserve them as sylvan ‘wildernesses’, and in the commercial rush for their precious resources, the fact that rainforests support the lives of millions of tribal peoples, and have been stewarded by them for generations, is overlooked.

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Tribal peoples have lived in, and depended on, rainforests for millennia.

The forests have provided – and still provide – their food, shelter and medicines, and are the burial grounds of their ancestors.

The Penan of Sarawak, the Yanomami and Enawene Nawe of the Amazon, the Ba’Aka of Cameroon, the Nukak of Colombia, and the 100 or more uncontacted tribes who live deep in the Amazon and Papuan rainforests all call their forests the same thing: home. “The forest is our mother,” a Penan headman said.

Survival International, a movement that for 40 years has helped tribal people defend their lives and protect their lands, believes that the fundamental problem for forest tribes, as for all tribal peoples, is the lack of recognition of their land rights. They are also threatened by governments and

corporations who regard their territories as empty lands available for ‘development’.

This development arrives in different, destructive forms, such as mining, logging and cattle-ranching, and all have a similar result. When outsiders move in, it is common for at least half of all tribal peoples to die from diseases to which they have no immunity.

Many conservation schemes that aim to establish wilderness reserves also deny the land rights of forest tribes, so they are evicted to the margins of their homelands in order to create people-free areas.

As a result, forest tribes have experienced destitution, ill-health, unemployment and depression. These are the consequences of forcing people from their homes, myths and memories – everything, in short, that gives their lives meaning.

r. hanbury-tenison/survival

More forest lost to a pipeline

Communal Yanomami home

Ravaged Penan homelands

fiona watson /survival, dennison berwick/survival, colin nicholas/coac

Yanomami living off the forest

Despite terrible suffering, the resistance of forest tribes is growing, and they are opposing the many external forces that threaten them. With the support of Survival International, they are fighting tooth and nail all those who want to rip out the rainforests, degrade their lands and destroy their lives.

The Penan is the last hunter-gatherer tribe in Malaysia. “The forest is sacred,” they say, “it belongs to the countless numbers who are dead, those who are living and the multitudes yet to be born.” It is everything to them; in their language, the word ‘tana’ means world, forest and universe.

Until the 1960s, all Penan people lived as nomads, moving camp frequently in search of boar, following the cycles of fruiting trees and wild sago palm, and trading products such as aromatic wood and rattan for

Seminomadic Penan

the rainforests still provide food, shelter and medicine knives, pans and tarpaulin. They know every inch of their territories: how to find the salt licks and pig wallows, where in the hillsides and ridges the animals live.

Today, most of the 10-12,000 Penan have settled in riverside communities but some are still largely nomadic, and are trying to eke out an existence and retain their unique identity in a rapidly vanishing forest. Since the 1970s, their rainforests have been bulldozed, burned and cleared for large-scale logging, oil-palm plantations, gas pipelines and hydroelectric dams.

But their resistance is strong. For the past two decades, the Penan people have been fighting against the annihilation of their home by mounting peaceful blockades across roads that transport loggers into the forest. And they are urging Survival International to tell the world their story.

“It is hard for us to look at the red land,” they told us. “We are only happy when there is a breeze, when we are under the trees, when we find ourselves in the shade of the forest.”

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“We love the forest as we Devastation love our own bodies,” say the at the Murum dam ‘Pygmy’ peoples who live in in Malaysia the forested regions of Central and West Africa. Each group – the Twa, Aka, Ba’Aka and Mbuti – is a distinct people with diverse languages, but one word is common to most: ‘Jengi’, meaning the spirit of the forest.

Small communities of Pygmy peoples have traditionally moved through the forest, gathering products such as yam, fruit, mushrooms, termites and caterpillars, collecting wild honey and exchanging goods with neighbouring settled societies. They recognise that the delicate balance between man and forest has only been ma inta ined for millennia through a respect for its limits.

“Our lives are defined by this forest,” they say. “We destroy nothing. We get only what we need.”

In the past few decades, however, their homelands have been devastated by logging, war and encroachment from farmers.

They have also suffered from conservation policies that have excluded them from their ancestral homes. Deforestation opens up their territories to commercial activities such as bush-meat trading. And as the animals vanish, so the Pygmies’ homes are left barren and silent.

The Amazon rainforest is thought to hold a quarter of the planet’s species. Below its canopy live the Yanomami people, one of tribal peoples, food staples such as cassava the largest relatively isolated tribes in South – which feeds 500 million people across the America, who are thought to have migrated world – might still be unknown. Plants and across the Bering Straits between Asia and herbs have been vital in the development America some 40,000 years ago. They have of around half of today’s prescription drugs survived since then by hunting, fishing and and tribal peoples originally discovered growing crops in the gardens close to their many of these.

As with the Penan and the Pygmy peoples, communal homes.

The Yanomami know their rainforest the Yanomami have also suffered from intimately, using approximately 500 damage brought about by the plundering of plants on a daily basis for food, shelter and their forest. In the 1980s, over 40,000 goldmedicines. They make slings for babies with miners invaded their territory, leading not silk-grass twine, arrow shafts from the stem only to severe environmental degradation, of pampas grass and extract salt from the but to nearly a fifth of the population dying ashes of the great Taurari tree. from measles and other illnesses.

Such continuous immersion in the Survival International has supported rainforest over thousands of years has also the Yanomami for decades, and led the resulted in an encyclopaedic knowledge of international campaign for the demarcation medicinal plants and herbs. The Yanomami of their territory. The result was the creation have discovered that the bark of the copal of the Yanomami Park in 1992, although tree helps eye pain and that the oil of goldminers are still working illegally in the the green cashew nut kills bot-fly larvae forest, alongside cattle ranchers who are deforesting the eastern fringe of their land. deposited under human skin.

As western scientists estimate that It has been conveniently overlooked they have only studied just one per cent by many that tribal peoples are the best of rainforest species, the wisdom of the stewards of the world’s rainforests. They Yanomami is indispensable. Were it not typically have a holistic view of nature, for the botanical knowledge of many forest seeing man as part of, not separate

Many areas outside tribal reserves are all but deforested

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from, the Earth. They do not view their homelands as inert places to be used for development and commercial gain but as living, fertile entities that not only provide all their practical and spiritual needs, but are vital for the future of the world. “We, the indigenous peoples, have not forgotten that man is part of nature. If we hurt the forest, we also hurt ourselves,” says Davi Kopenawa.

A map of the Amazon illustrates the effects of the Yanomami’s ongoing stewardship of their rainforest. Many areas outside tribal reserves are almost completely deforested, whereas within tribal areas they are still largely intact.

Similarly, the Jarawa people of the Indian Oceans’ Andaman Islands inhabit the last remaining tracts of their region’s virgin rainforest.

Despite their resistance, forest tribal peoples are still vulnerable. The solution lies in the recognition of two basic rights: to land and to self-determination. Survival International and its worldwide supporters are working with them to achieve these rights, and to ensure that all companies and organisations take no action within the forests without the free, prior and informed consent of the people who live in them.

Over the past 50 years, a third of the world’s rainforests have been felled and burned. Survival International believes that securing the land rights of forest peoples is not only crucial for the future of the Yanomami, the Penan, the Pygmy peoples, the uncontacted tribes and all other forest peoples, but is one of the best ways of protecting the world’s rainforests.

Find out more at www.survivalinternational.org

survival international

FOREST LIFE

UNDER THE CANOPY

sOWING Seeds of life Moctar Sacande works as the international coordinator for Africa at Kew Gardens’ Millennium Seed Bank. Here he gives us an insight into the task of identifying and replanting rare forest seeds for the continent’s future Moctar at work planting a seedling

Planting in Mali

moctar sacande

O

ver the past decade, the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership, founded by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, has gathered a great deal of information on forest tree species.

It is now helping to cultivate these species, in collaboration with its partners.

Throughout 2010, most of our partners in countries such as Botswana, Malawi, Ghana and Burkina Faso signed up to the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership’s tree planting initiative, as a way to celebrate the International Year of Biological Diversity.

They are assisting with finding seeds, producing seedlings and then planting wild species such as Mungongo, which are edible nuts found at the edge of the Kalahari desert in Botswana, and Bitter kola, a chewy stick used to clean teeth, which has been planted in the cocoa farms of Boadumasi in Ghana.

I make at least a couple of trips a year to

each of our partner countries. Needless to say, Africa is big and diverse, and being from Burkina Faso myself, I am very interested in finding out how communities in different countries deal or connect with plants, as well as how uses vary from place to place.

I discovered, for example, that the species Prosopis africana, the only tropical African species of the genus, produce fruits that are edible, while in Niger while they are used as feed for animal in Burkina Faso. Believe me, once people in Burkina found out about this other use they started trying these pods, seeing the potential added value!

Some of the wild species we work with are already well known by communities, hence their selection and prioritisation.

Fieldworking with a Bushman traditional healer in Botswana, I was surprised by his great knowledge of medicinal plants in the wild, with uses ranging from appetite depressants and wound-healing saps to rehydrating tubers, all of which

he considered his natural pharmacy.

On the other hand, we have helped the communities use species not previously known to them in order to solve their problems. Examples are medicinal and pesticide plants in Mali that they only knew of in the wild but never managed to get seedlings from and plant before.

I regularly meet producers, farmers and community leaders every time I am out on collecting expeditions, to ask local names of plants, or to gain permission to collect seed in sacred woodland or in family plots or farms. The resulting seedlings are planted in communal plots, village woodlands, river sources, sacred forests, and in school and home gardens.

As all of these communities contribute time, effort and land, the work is gaining momentum, with many other communities requesting similar support.

The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership has struck the right tone by using knowledge of plant science to address communities’ needs to improve their livelihoods. Funds permitting, the programme will go a long way to improve standards of living and reduce poverty for future generations. read more aT www.kew.org

communities use seeds to solve their problems Volume 69 trees | 19

PROJECT FOCUS

A CLOSER LOOK

We meet the people behind just a few of the ITF-supported schemes that are achieving real change in communities

Pioneering ugandan tree project caught on film Last year, ITF was awarded the chance to create a short film of its work.

The focus of the film was the Molly and Paul farm school in Uganda, and its ambitious fruit tree project.

We speak to the school’s visionary founder and Head Teacher, Apollo Saku

W

ith seven schools throughout Uganda and hundreds of children benefiting from its work, the Molly and Paul Children’s Foundation is a vital operation. Working to provide orphaned children with a sure footing in life, the charity has, in the last four years, had extra help thanks to some keen young farmers and one remarkable teacher.

Apollo Saku is Head Teacher at the Molly and Paul farm school in Kamuzindu, near the city of Masaka. As a boy he met Molly and Paul founder ‘Uncle’ Paul Wasswa, and Paul supported him to complete a university degree in science. After graduation, Apollo decided his skills were best put to use at the charity, and in 2006 he established the Molly and Paul Farm School. In a place where money is tight and there are always mouths to feed, the potential for a farm that would not only teach children land management and conservation, but could also provide fresh food for all, was a stroke of genius.

Sudan

Somalia

Ug an da

Ethiopia

Kenya

Farm School

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Since that time, the farm has gone from strength to strength, with what used to be acres of bush and scrubland now yielding staple food crops, as well as supporting growing numbers of livestock and poultry.

Funding from the International Tree Foundation has enabled the school to plant 700 trees, including coffee, mango, papaya and avocado. Trees such as sesbiana and fiscus are also grown for animal feed.

Students, whose ages range from 15-20, enjoy looking after the trees to such an extent that during a recent dry spell they’d trek two kilometres by ox cart to fetch water for them.

It was this enthusiasm that so struck filmmaker Matt Hopkins when he visited the farm school in summer 2010 to film for the International Tree Foundation. ITF was one of the recipients of a Media Trust award for charities to create promotional films, and the energy of the Molly and Paul Farm School children has been captured for all to see.

“I think the film was good publicity for us,” says Apollo, “and once it is done we can use it ourselves, too, to show to the children and to help us raise funds, as well as to attract more volunteers.

“The fruit tree project is something we want to build on – not just in terms of raising more funds, but in using it to generate a long term, sustainable income for the farm so that we can pay our teachers and provide for all of our pupils. Ultimately, we’re targeting self-sufficiency.

“I’m very, very happy because I can see that there’s been a lot of change since the farm started work,” he adds. “We’re doing our level best to improve the lives of these children.” read more about www.mollyandpaul.org Watch the completed ITF film at www.internationaltreefoundation.org

A pupil gets closer to a farm fruit tree

One budding farmer carries wood

A verdant tree near the orphanage

Farm filmmaker MATt Hopkins, Progress Films How did you get involved with the ITF film project?

We applied to volunteer with the Media Trust filmmaking scheme, which matches up filmmakers with charities. Charities get to produce a film for £1000, and the Media Trust awarded us a £500 budget.

It allowed us to be creative and to get a little bit more exposure.

Were you familiar with the ITF? We already do work with the Woodland Trust, so it really appealed. I was in Africa filming for travel companies – hotels in Zanzibar and Mombasa, as well as a series for a safari company in Kenya. To go from something like that to Molly and Paul, where it really is not-for-profit, was fantastic.

What were your first impressions?

Uganda is an incredibly verdant place, everything’s growing, everything’s green. We turned up expecting a field of seedlings, but it looked like a tropical jungle with trees and fruits.

Any special memories?

We had asked to get a few of the villagers together for a group shot – suddenly 400 children rocked up and I was asked to make a speech!

I’ve never been so nervous.

Will the experience change the way you work in the future?

Being at the farm school really made me think about what I wanted to do, and possibly about going back to make a longer film on the orphanage there. It was an eye-opening experience.

Fruits of the forest

www.progressfilm.co.uk

Students and their seedlings

Apollo with the school’s seedlings

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PROJECT FOCUS

Planting seedlings to grow the forests of the future

Trees sustain animals and humans alike

keeping the forest alive On Likoma island, years of overuse have depleted the forests. One project is protecting woodland and helping visitors to enjoy it, too

O

n the island of Likoma, in the middle of Lake Malawi, trees are a precious commodity.

After war hit neighbouring Mozambique in 1977, families fled to the island for safety. This, coupled with natural population growth, saw many trees felled for fuel and building materials.

Now the island plays host to just 70 hectares of indigenous woodland.

Thankfully, one small project is doing its best to increase that, and secure both trees and livelihoods for the future. Cluny Wildlife Trust, established in 2001, has planted 26,000 trees since starting its project on Likoma in 2007, a number they plan to boost by another 40,000 in the coming year. The planting will be helped by a grant from the International Tree Foundation.

The Trust’s chairman Derek MacPherson explains, “Our project began in 2007 with funding from our own meagre means, and the recent funding award from ITF means we can go a lot further. We’ve planted three species so far – Acacia polycantha, Albizia versicolar and Senna simea, which are all

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Likoma island Malawi Zambia Zimbabwe

Namibia

ue biq m a oz M

Botswana

relatively fast-growing and are used for fuel wood and building material on the island.

“The idea of planting these trees in our nursery is to relieve the pressure on Likoma’s remaining indigenous forest, as well as the species that live within it.’’

There’s another benefit to keeping the forest alive, as Likoma is also looking to tourism as a source of future income. “The island setting, with its backdrop of forest, has really good potential for tourism and we want to see that the local people, who own the forest and lakeshore, don’t lose out.”

In 2011, Cluny Wildlife Trust will be working on a legal framework for tourism development, as well as supporting local tourism entrepreneurs to make the most of their beautiful home.

Poulshot in Wiltshire: a landscape laid bare

by Dutch Elm disease

A cathedral of trees Decimated in the 1970s by Dutch Elm disease, one Wiltshire village is making good progress in restoring the environment they used to enjoy, thanks in part to funding provided by the International Tree Foundation FUNDING

P

oulshot Village Trust is an independent group dedicated to the preservation and upkeep of their village, which is situated near Devizes in Wiltshire. In the 1970s the village’s parish hedgerows were decimated by Dutch Elm Disease. “What the trust has tried to do over the years is plant more trees around the village to restore the environment we used to have,” explains Trust Secretary and third-generation Poulshot resident, Peter Cleverly.

Th e v i l l a ge w a s d e s i g n ate d a Conservation Area in 1973 and the Poulshot community first began replanting back in 1977. While much of the work has been undertaken by residents, the projects also needed some outside funding.

In September 2010, The International Tree Foundation awarded the trust a £500 grant to help support future replanting work.

“When the elms, which are very big trees, were struck down, we were left with a very flat landscape,” says Peter. “Our plan is to plant oak, ash and large-leaved lime trees within the hedgerows, which will restore that much-missed vertical dimension to Poulshot.

“The trees, and in particular the oak, are fantastic support systems for wildlife.

I believe that, on average, an oak tree xx x x

supports around 170 different varieties of wildlife, so there is a very big biodiversity benefit to this project as well. And let’s also not forget the aesthetic reasons why this is worth doing. To walk down a lane and have a cathedral of trees towering above you is truly marvellous.”

As the trust is introducing the new trees into the village hedgerows, they will attach a marker to every one that they plant.

This is to ensure that when the hedges face their semi-regular trim, the infant trees aren’t also cut back in the process.

“One thing we will have to be careful about when the trees reach maturity is ensuring the branches don’t hang too low in the lanes.

These byways are used by horse riders and agricultural machinery, so we need to make sure they always have a clear path.”

The re-planting work required is extensive, but Peter and the trust know they have the support of the village’s residents to call upon.

“We generally get between 20 and 30 people turning up to help,” he says. “I think the people here recognise that our trees and our hedgerows are very important to the fabric of the village. They’ve been here for a long time, and not only do they support all of this marvellous wildlife, but they provide us with these wonderful paths through our landscape.”

WALES Cardiff

Swindon Bristol

Poulshot ENGLAND Bournemouth

Bristol Channel

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The gift that grows The gift you make today will help us support lives, protect communities and heal the planet Your gift to the International Tree Foundation will go where it is needed most to help reforestation, provide a route out of poverty and to increase awareness of our priceless forests and the species that live in them. Few gifts can do so much.

s

CHANGING THE WORLD FOR THE BETTER By helping the ITF to disseminate knowledge and expertise, provide seeds and saplings, and to empower local people and organisations, you will be changing the world for the better.

understanding their plight From subsistence farmers in the Sahel region of Africa, to desperately poor people in Haiti committed to improving their cashew nut crops; from endangered forest animals in Ethiopia to tragically damaged ancient forests in Malawi – responding to our appeal today will help projects like these by showing you understand their plight and believe something must and can be done. supporting our future PLANET For over 85 years the International Tree Foundation has been taking

www.internationaltreefoundation.org/donate or To send a cheque to ITF, PO Box 1000a, Surbiton, donate go to KT1 9UA, call us on 01342 717300 or email info@internationaltreefoundation.org

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action to support life and heal the planet. But we can only succeed with your help. So please consider making this vital appeal your priority and help us make a better world.