Winter 2009 Newsletter

Page 1Johnny Ipil-Seed News Vol. XVII, No. 4

Winter 2009 Vol. XVII, No. 4The quarterly newsletter of Trees for the Future

Many people start their day by picking up the paper or turning on the television. These acts have a different purpose for each of us – a way to fight the urge to go back to bed, a way to discover conversation starters, a way to ignore the person on his cell phone on the sub-way, or a way to see what decisions are being made in the world and learn about their consequences. It seems that every day there are decisions that can change the direction of so many people’s lives. One person chooses to bring a gun to work and individuals and families are suddenly changed forever. Govern-ments’ decisions on whether or not to address global climate change can affect us all. Climate change is es-pecially pertinent when Brazil recently suffered from severe flooding during its dry season and experienced only its third torna-do in recorded history. Even some-thing as simple as consciously smil-ing at someone when you get your coffee in the morning has an effect on those around you. In a recent trip to Brazil, South America Program Officer Jeff Follett realized how true this is in the work we do at Trees for the Future. As Jeff stood in the Pantanal in late September he discussed the en-vironmental and social issues that face people living in the area. The dry season was light this past year, so the cows looked better than they usually do at the beginning of the rainy season. The most startling as-pect of their condition is that they

were coming out of one of the wettest dry seasons in quite some time. They would have looked worse had the dry season been more severe. Hundreds of thou-sands of these skinny cows wander through the World Heritage recognized wetlands in western Brazil. Con-trary to many of our project sites, these cows are not the greatest threat facing the Pantanal. Instead it is the forests to the north that are being cut down to create soybean fields. All of the runoff, with its sediment and pollution included, travels to the Pantanal and wreaks havoc. The people north of the Pantanal never intended to damage the wetland, but deforestation in one area can severely affect another region. In early October Jeff and Brazil Field Representative,

Unintended Benefi ts in Brazil

Continued on page 9

Members of the Marília Bee Association display their agroforestry train-ing certifi cates. We distributed 80,000 seeds in one day to these graduates.

Fernanda Peixoto is the woman in front in white.


The Miami Valley of southwestern Ohio doesn’t usually get much snow. The winter of 1913 was different and by the end of February the snow pack was deep. By then the temperature was up and the snow was melt-ing under heavy rains, which continued over the following weeks. The Great Miami Riv-er runs through the City of Dayton. On the north side it is joined by the Stillwater River, Mad River, and Wolf Creek along with smaller streams. With considerable forethought, the city fathers had constructed high le-vees to avoid fl ooding. Over the years the levees had always proven ample. But not in that March of 1913 when the surge quickly poured over the top of the levees; bringing deep water to the downtown and low-lying residential areas. Gas lines in offi ce buildings broke. One by one, tall build-ings in the center of town exploded as the fi res spread. Across the Main Street Bridge from downtown is a low-lying residential area called Riverdale. Not the most affl uent part of town. The river quickly found Riverdale and the water rose faster than most people could imagine. That was true in the household of Charley and Hel-en Deppner and their sons Joe (my Dad) and Robert. Grabbing what they could, they scrambled up on the roof of the front porch, pulled out the attic ventilator and squeezed in to get dry. Only then did they real-ize they had crawled into a deadly trap with the water still quickly rising. They couldn’t get out. In vain they struggled to break through the roof. Across the Main Street Bridge was Fire Station No. 4 where my Great Uncle Charley Wagner and his team were launching some wooden boats which they sent out to check the neighborhoods including that little house on Babbitt Street. They heard the noises inside the attic, quickly fi gured out what was happening, guided their boat up on the roof, started chopping with their axes, and pulled everybody out just in time. Had it not been for the brave men in that boat that would have been the end of the Deppner Family. There would never have

The Johnny Ipil-Seed News is a quarterly newsletter of TREES FOR THE FUTURE, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people of the world’s poorest communities to begin environmentally beneficial, self-help projects. This newsletter is printed using wind energy on recycled pa-per with soy-based ink and is sent to all supporting members to inform them of recent events, plans, financial matters and how their support is helping people.

BOARD OF DIRECTORSDr. John R. Moore - Chairman, Dr. Peter Falk - Vice Chair-man, Mr. Oscar V. Gruspe - Finance Officer, Dave Deppner - President, Mr. Bedru Sultan, Ms. Marilou Herman, Mr. Franz Stuppard, Mr. John Leary - Members, R. Grace Deppner - Re-cording Secretary (non-voting)

ADVISORY COUNCILDr. Mizani Kristos - West African Development, Dr. James Brewbaker - University of Hawaii, Mr. William Campbell - Sea-soned Energy, Mr. Steve McCrea - Global Climate Change, FL, Dr. Malcolm Novins - George Mason University, Dr. Noel Viet-meyer - The Vetiver Institute, Mr. Sean Griffin - Forestry & GIS Specialist

STAFFDave Deppner - Founder, Executive Director

R. Grace Deppner - Founder, Associate DirectorJeffrey Manuel - Membership Services

Gorav Seth - International Programs CoordinatorJosh Bogart - Central America Coordinator

Ethan Budiansky - Africa and Caribbean Program OfficerJeff Follett - South America Program Officer

Francis Deppner - Southeast Asia CoordinatorDavid Tye - East Africa Coordinator

Heather Muszyinski - Grants CoordinatorGabe Buttram - Ethiopia Program Coordinator

Ryan Murphy - Tree Pals CoordinatorLeandro Monteiro - Business Partnerships Coordinator

FIELD STAFFLouis Nkembi - Cameroon, Guillermo Valle - Honduras, Subra-manian Periyasamy - India, Sagapala Gangisetty - India, Manoj Bhatt - India, Donal Perez - Nicaragua, Danny Zabala - Philip-pines, Omar Ndao - Senegal, Kay Howe - Indonesia, Fernanda Peixoto - Brazil, Paulino Damiano Mugendi - Kenya, Mathi-us Lukwago - Uganda, Karamba Diakhaby - Senegal, Lovans Owusu-Takyi -Ghana, Robin Achah- Cameroon, Timote Georg-es - Haiti, Mohamed Traore - Mali, Merkebu Garedew - Ethiopia

To receive this newsletter or for more information, contact:TREES FOR THE FUTURE

The Loret Miller Ruppe Center for Sustainable DevelopmentP.O. Box 7027, Silver Spring, MD 20907

Toll Free: 1-800-643-0001: Ph: 301-565-0630 [email protected]

WWW.PLANT-TREES.ORG

Continued on page 3

Opinion: Once Again - Déjà vu


Opinion (continued from page 2)

Continued on page 11

been a Dave Deppner. What got me thinking about something that happened 96 years ago – a story that has been passed down (and possibly overstated) over four generations? Late on a dreary Saturday last September, with a typhoon (“Pep-eng”) approaching Manila, we were on a bus coming back from our typhoon-stricken project area in the North. The North Diversion Highway is high – higher than the already fl ooded rice lands on either side of the road. Suddenly we found our-selves in a fl ash fl ood. The driver alertly stopped, backed up onto a higher place close to a toll booth, but the waters kept rising, swirling about two feet deep around the bus. The questions on everybody’s minds were, “How much deeper could the fl ood waters become and would they fl oat the bus off the road, capsizing it down into the rice fi elds?” We sat there for the next six hours, hoping and praying – and watching a continuing pa-rade of wretched humanity – as people living in houses along the rice fi elds waded through the water, strug-gling against its force. The nearby toll gates offered a long steel bridge, sheltered by a steel roof, cold and windy, but at least high and dry. Families struggled through the fl ood wa-ters, carrying their young children, and spent the night squeezed together on that bridge. We also saw a parade of water buffalo, cattle, goats and pigs that had broken out of their pens and found high ground. Later we saw the carcasses of those that hadn’t found a high place. There were a few small houses down below my win-dow, most of them now in water up to the roof line. One house had a second fl oor and the family there, like my own family a century before, had moved up there. Now they were trapped. Nothing we could do but sit there on the bus helplessly and watch what was sure to follow. It

was almost dark now. But then we could see small dark shapes moving to-ward that trapped family – young men, jumping from one rooftop to the next, sometimes swinging by tree branches to get to the next house. From two directions they crawled and jumped to the roof of that house. With their bare fi ngers, they pulled and twisted the corrugat-ed iron until they got a couple of sheets loose.

Then, working closely together, they formed a hu-man chain and got that fam-ily safely to higher ground. Before my eyes I had seen a virtual replay of that day long ago, half a world away in Dayton, Ohio. Now this family, too, was safe from the fl ood waters. Sometime later, the waters started receding and our bus moved on to Ma-nila. In 14 hours we had made a trip that normally takes four. But as the chain of typhoons continued, nobody in Central Luzon was going anywhere. The “Hundred Year Flood” was back for the 8th time in the last 37 years. Four ty-phoons landed in a period of only fi ve weeks, with another

waiting off to the southeast. Our project area was especially hit hard. Seven of the 35 barangays (communities) of Botolan (our major proj-ect area in the north) were completely wiped out. Some 2,200 houses were destroyed. The South China Sea just came in and took people, houses, and more than a mile of the coastal road when it left. Hundreds of families walked miles along the roads until they reached land above the fl ood waters. There were few places where they could stay but the people of the upland communi-ties did all they could; including making thousands of “bayanihan” (do it yourself) houses from grasses and bamboo. Thanks to communities working together, vic-tims were at least dry. Food was on the way. But what about water? Clean water was defi nitely a problem. Un-fortunately, there was plenty of the other kind.

Flooding in the town of Iba, Zambales, the Philippines due to multiple tropical storms and a

break in the dike along the Bucao river.


Philippine Update This rainy season was a brutal one in the Philippines, with tropical storms and typhoons hitting most of the Philippines with increased strength and frequency. We attended many meetings with groups interested in start-ing projects in their communities and with businesses interested in supporting our work there. We visited the Philippines in September and in the four weeks we were there fi ve tropical storms ripped through the country. Each storm brought lots of rain, in addition to winds that took out power and telephone lines which made the relief efforts much more diffi cult. Our project in Zambales is growing due to land-owners’ agreements with the Department of Natural Resources (DENR) which requires them to reforest their land in exchange for land grants. Our partner, TREES/Philippines, has reached many more people

with the digital projector and laptop that we provided to assist them in giving presentations to different organi-zations and schools. We have also developed a partner-ship with the Ramon Magsaysay Technical University who will assist us in conducting germination tests and also will help us during the planting season. In response to recent challenges faced by people in Zambales due to Typhoon Ondoy and Pepeng we delivered food and ba-sic necessities to some of the 1,500 displaced families. In Cebu we are working with Cebu Permaculture Initiative, a new partner who has offered us a place to setup an offi ce as we plan on expanding our projects to various islands in the Philippines this year. We met with several organizations in Cebu that understand the importance of tree planting and sustainable land man-agement in the prevention of the severe fl oods we wit-

Due to all of the storms, the river in Zambales swelled and destroyed roads, houses, and crops

Ipil-Ipil (Leucaena leucocephala) planted amongst vari-ous fruit and vegetable species



Haiti UpdateEthan Budiansky, Africa and Haiti Program Officer

This past September I made my third trip to Haiti in the past two years. TREES’ Haiti Representative, Tim-ote Georges had been providing me with very encour-aging reports and excellent pictures from the fi eld for the past year. It was time to see these accomplishments for myself, and to work with Timote to see how we can improve and expand the program moving into 2010. If you were to fl y over Hispanola or look at satellite view on Google Maps, you would see a signifi -cant difference between the Dominican Repub-lic (DR) and Haiti. The DR is lush and green while Haiti is brown. Not long ago, the two countries were very similar in environment. Today, however, while about 30% of the DR is forested, less than 5% of Haiti has any intact forests and the majority of the land is complete-ly degraded. There are numerous reasons to explain this difference between the two coun-tries, but one thing is certain, the people of Haiti suffer signifi cant-ly due to a long history of poor land use prac-tices. As a result, our efforts in Haiti have focused primarily on working with farmers to plant trees along the degraded hillsides and within their fi elds to bring life back to the impoverished soils and decrease further soil erosion. The trees also provide numerous other important benefi ts such as fi rewood, food, and biodiesel. This year, we projected planting 1 million trees with communities along the Arcadine Coast. After my recent visit, I discovered we are likely

to surpass those numbers. While I was there we visited numerous tree nurser-ies and planting sites. Many of the seedlings from the nurseries had already been planted in the fi elds and community members were busy fi lling tree sacks for the second rainy season. For labor intensive activities, members of surrounding communities come together to form a ‘kombit,’ or work party, in order help one anoth-

er out in the fi eld. This same practice is being adopted for tree plant-ing as well. At the tree nursery in Desvase, over 20 people from different communities were helping fi ll tree sacks for the nursery. In Bercy, people from numerous communi-ties were helping out to plant trees in one farmer’s fi eld. Many people also chose to plant trees di-rectly in their family compounds. I had a great conversation with Joseph and Mercise Jones about the Mor-inga live fence they planted around their home. They explained to me that they planted the trees because of the health and nutritional benefi ts from eating Moringa, especially for pregnant and lactat-

ing women (Mercise was 8 months pregnant). I was impressed by their knowledge. We also exchanged our favorite recipes for cooking the leaves. Trees for the Future’s training and resource center in Leveque, along the major Route 1, is also developing well. Timote is in the process of clearing the yard to put in a demonstration tree nursery. While I was there,

A student transplanting a Swietenia macrophylla seedling in Cariyes



New Developments in Zambia David Tye, the East Africa Regional Program Coordinator recently visited Zambia to meet with local non-gov-ernmental organizations to discuss tree planting projects. David met with local organizations and visited projects sites in Kabwe, Lusaka, Chikuni, and Livingstone. These four cities are located throughout Central and Southern Zambia. The Savannah Project works with the Seventh Day Adventist Churches throughout Zambia on health issues and has recently started an environmental and tree planting program to address problems with soil degrada-tion and the cutting of trees for fuelwood needs. The Savannah Project has a bold initiative to plant one million trees in 1,000 Seventh Day Adventist Churches throughout Zambia next year. Trees for the Future will provide the tree seeds and will conduct four workshops in different regions of the country to help facilitate this tree planting project.

The Kasisi Agriculture Training Center outside of Lusaka works on training rural farmers in week long courses that cover the benefi ts and techniques of improved agricultural practices and agroforestry. This year Kasisi has educated 1,000 farmers on these techniques as well as tree nursery management and fuel effi cient stoves. Trees for the Future will provide seeds and training material to Kasisi Agricultural Training Center to help facilitate their training program. The SAM (Sustainability through Agriculture and Micro-Enterprise) Project is based outside of Livingstone, Zambia and is part of the Overland Mission organization. The SAM Project works on sustainable agriculture and small enterprise development projects to improve the lives of rural Zambians farmers. Trees for the Future has already provided thousands of seeds to the SAM Project and they are interested in greatly expanding the project next year to plant even more trees in the surrounding communities. The Zambia Program is having a great start and 2010 should be a very successful year.

Faidherbia albida has received a lot of press since the World Agroforestry Congress Chikuni Mission Tree Nursery


Tree Pals Winter Update Tree Pals got off to a great start this fall. Ryan Murphy, the Tree Pals Coordinator, has already linked four classes planting trees in Nicaragua with partner classes in the U.S. Participants exchanged letters, photos and drawings and learned about the different culture and environment of their partner classes. In Nicaragua, TREES was able to provide materials in Spanish geared towards sustainable land management and tree planting in rural communities. Donal Gutierrez, TREES fi eld technician, has led workshops for students in tree planting, natural resource management and composting. To celebrate the school tree planting projects, he organized an event in his community to distribute tree seedlings and raise awareness of the work that students are doing with Trees for the

Future. Tree Pals is also working with a Peace Corps Volunteer outside of Leon, Nicaragua who is planting trees and fa-cilitating a letter exchange at schools in his rural village. Starting in January 2010, Tree Pals will work to link 20 classes in TREES program countries, including Ethiopia, Ghana, India and the Philippines, to partner classes throughout the United States. Teachers and youth group lead-ers are already expressing interest, but Tree Pals still has room for more and is currently accepting applications. If you teach or know of a class or youth group that might like to participate, contact Ryan at [email protected] Tree Pals would also like to thank the many busi-nesses that have chosen to support the program.

Ryan came to Trees for the Future in January 2009 after returning from his Peace Corps service high in the Peruvian Andes. There he worked with an indigenous environmental group to promote sustainable ecotour-ism, built improved stoves, taught resource awareness and English at the local school, hosted a radio show, harvested potatoes and herded sheep. He came back from Peru ready to fi nd a career in development and small scale sustainable agriculture and landed at the door of Trees for the Future. Ryan is now develop-ing the Tree Pals program and will be helping the fund-raising team at the offi ce.

Introducing Ryan Murphy

Students working with Peace Corps Volunteer Tyler Sinclair to trans-port tree seedlings in a small town outside of Leon, Nicaragua.


Best Pictures of 2009

Cameroon - Trees for the Future reforestation project in Lebialem with the Njenbin Young Farmers Group

Honduras - Don Julio with year and a half oldAcrocarpus tree

Kenya - Carrying seedlings up a steep hill in Kiangondu

At the end of the year we like to put in a few of our favorite photographs. We hope they help to show you some of the great work that your program is accomplishing. Thank you for your support!

Ethiopia - Gabe Buttram at a hillside reforestation site


Fernanda Peixoto, visited project sites and dis-tributed seeds in São Paulo state. The people they spoke with decided to start planting trees for many reasons. In one case, a neighbor had lost three crops of cassava due to erosion. In another case, a farmer could not maintain soil humidity and was continually having to water her crops. In yet another case, a farmer had a nursery de-stroyed by high winds and lost all of the flow-ers on her coffee bushes before they could pro-duce fruit. We continue to address issues such as these in São Paulo state. By working with five groups – Marília Small Farmers Associa-tion, Cooperativa Sul, Oriente Bee Association, Marília Bee Association, and the Guaranta Set-tlement – we hope to reach hundreds of farmers. We have already distributed over 230,000 seeds to these five groups. After months of training and preparing nurseries, the farmers are pre-pared to plant their seeds. The seeds will grow for approximately 2 ½ months in the nurseries before being transplanted in January. In each case, the farmer who plants the trees will benefit from reduced wind speeds, reduced erosion, and better production.

This is great news, but it gets better. The unintended consequences of their decision to plant trees include motivation of their neighbors, habitat creation for ani-mals, including bees, and improved water quality and flow in areas that could be far from their property. One of the advantages of working at Trees for the Fu-ture is that as a staff member we get to meet the people you help. Since you cannot meet these people directly, it is helpful if we tell you their stories. Elsa lives in a settlement near Guaranta, São Paulo, Brazil. The morning we visited Elsa, we found her working in her nursery. Only after talking for a while did we find out that her father passed away the day before. She de-cided to stick around because she knew that we planned to stop by to talk about the project. The sheer dedica-tion of the people in Guaranta is amazing. Elsa went to Guaranta 11 years ago and squatted on the land for 6 months before the land was designated as a settlement. In that time she had to continually move. The police would arrive to get the squatters off the land and the settlers would have to grab what they could and run through the night. Somehow this was better than the low paying farmhand job she had before moving to the area. For 6 years she lived in a plastic tent waiting for

Unintended Benefits in Brazil (continued from page 1)

Elsa tells about the early years of living in the Guaranta settlement

Fernanda Peixoto explains the layout of a windbreak to resi-dents of the Guaranta settlement



we held a meeting with numerous community leaders interested in working with Trees for the Future in 2010. They had heard about our work by word of mouth and by participating in tree planting kombits. In addition to other functions, the training center serves as a primary location for interested people to seek out the assistance of Trees for the Future. Our program in Haiti has developed slowly over the past 6 years, with natural disasters and diffi cult politi-cal and social environments slowing the process down. However, since early 2008, the program has improved signifi cantly and has become a fl agship program at TREES. Looking ahead towards 2010, the program will continue to grow. We will expand to work with new and motivated communities along the Arcadine Coast. We also have plans to develop major programs in the mountains in Medor, and also in Gonaives where the hurricanes of 2008 resulted in so much destruction.

Unintended Benefits in Brazil (continued from page 9)

Vitoria is one of the producers in Guaranta who will benefi t from a windbreak. The fl owers on her coffee bushes are blown off before they can produce fruit.

Haiti - Tree planting kombit along the degraded hill-sides in Decouvert

the government to act. She and other residents had to buy rope to divide up the land (their way of measuring distances) and the group had to collect money to build their own dirt roads. She and the others did not start producing on the land until they had their titles in hand. This shows the importance of land tenure. They did not want to invest in the area until it was theirs. Elsa is now planting nearly 3,000 trees on her land as a windbreak to protect her crops and her home. If you are familiar with Trees for the Future you prob-ably are aware of the many benefits from planting trees which is why you support us year after year. Perhaps you are attracted to the environmental benefits, perhaps you have traveled to rural communities in other parts of the world and have seen the benefit that trees can provide, or perhaps you have an attachment to a par-ticular location where we work. In any of these cases there are definitely unintended benefits for thousands of people worldwide, such as Elsa, to your donating to a non-profit organization here in the United States.

Haiti Update (continued from page 5)


Like most others in Manila, our family’s house was fl ooded for several hours even though the rainfall there – six hours – was far less than enough to cause such a fl ood. There was simply no way for the waters to es-cape the city. What happened that turned the “Pearl of the Orient” into this sodden mess? Well, a combination of several things – some you might not expect. For ex-ample, the water could not get out of Manila that night because of plastic bags! If you’re not yet convinced plastic bags are a bad idea, a stroll through Manila the following morning would have changed your mind. They were everywhere, even at the top of 7 foot walls. Everything comes to the Filipino in plastic bags, even the emergency water and relief supplies. Rainwater pours out of Manila into the Bay through a number of estuarios which start as ravines and become open sew-ers as they near the ocean. So what do people in Manila do with all these plastic bags? Simple, they toss them in the estuarios. There the bags stick to everything and eventually close off the drainage system. That’s why a six hour rainstorm turned deadly. Why do I dwell on the details of this small adven-ture? Because what happened that weekend in the Phil-ippines, with the earthquake and resulting landslides that killed thousands in Pandang, Indonesia at the same time, is no small thing! These events are happening on a growing scale – year after year, in thousands of com-munities. Anybody who thinks there is no such thing as

climate change should walk the beaches of the South China Sea or the uplands of Sumatra. The changes are there. You can’t miss them. In these thousands of islands, the saying has long been that when you have high tides and heavy rain to-gether, people of the lowlands are in real danger. The South China Sea along that coast is 14 inches higher than when I fi rst swam there in 1973. Before, they had high tides. Now they have really high tides. And in 40 more years, that town will either be no more or will have moved to higher ground. Climate change seems also to be altering weather pat-terns. Wet areas are getting more rain. Dry areas are get-ting less. The drought in southeastern Australia is now in its seventh year. Now add the fact that throughout these islands most upland forests have been clear-cut, burned over year after year, until what few trees made it back were quickly cut and turned into charcoal to sell so as to feed a desperately poor family (made desperate because the forests are no longer there). We met with barangay leaders. With seven barangays from that one town now history, people desperately seek answers. We point out that the only realistic way to end this threat is to plant the trees that will hold these waters in the uplands, slowly releasing them. This is no small task: in the case of Botolan Town alone, it would require planting some twenty million trees. If done cor-rectly these would, over some years, bring about the

natural regeneration of another fi fteen million trees. And together, the trees of this forest can hold back the fl oods while also reward-ing the people who planted them with a better, sustainable, way of life. Can it be done? We know it can. More important, the people of those upland communities know they can, with some help, restore their lands. TREES is providing some of that help, thanks to you, and we’re looking for more con-cerned people to join us.

Opinion (continued from page 3)

Engine House #4 in Dayton, Ohio (c. 1894) is still standing


nessed in other parts of the Philippines. During our short time in Cebu we made a detailed project plan to greatly expand our work in the Philippines by planting on the island. The last day there we held an open forum which, despite being planned only the day before, had over 100 people attend from various organizations, community groups, and the press. The turnout showed us that people there are very passionate about preserving and re-turning the land back to productivity. Our forum made that night’s local news and could still be found in magazines and newspapers in the days and weeks after our trip. Upon our return to Manila we found that the roads to most of our project sites had been blocked off due to fl ooding or landslides. Fortunately we were able to meet with several people who helped us to spread our message. One of them was Zac Sar-ian from the Manila Bulletin (the main newspaper in the Philippines) who wrote an article about our work and the negative effects of deforestation. We also benefi tted from the Global Mala event whose proceeds benefi tted Trees for the Future’s projects in the Philippines. We especially benefi ted from press coverage of the event on television, radio,

and in newspapers. At the Global Mala event, we gave a presenta-tion about our work in the Philip-pines and explained how people could get involved in tree planting. We also met with members from Ecorestoration, an NGO that has a 450 hectare planting site on the is-land of Mindinao near San Isisdro in the foothills of Mt. Apo. Overall our trip there was a success as we will be planting many more trees in the Philippines. We also made contacts in Thailand and Malaysia where we plan to ex-pand our Southeast Asia program in 2010.

Community leader Joel Lee with Francis and Dave Deppner at the forum

The Philippines (continued from page 4)Francis Deppner with an 8-month-old Acacia an-

gustissima tree


Progress and Adaptation in Ethiopia Increasing population pressures along with harmful land-use practices in Ethiopia have led (and continue to lead) to severe land degradation throughout the coun-try. In the areas of Ethiopia where TREES is currently working, the primary problem is not lack of resources, as in many countries where we work, but rather poor management of them. As all of you who read this newsletter know well, planting trees to control the erosion of topsoil and re-store productivity and health to agricultural lands and degraded watersheds is a very effective way to manage resources (especially soil and water) in a more sustain-able way. To be effective over a large area though, this requires planting an enormous number of trees. For this reason, Trees for the Future has been working with its partners since the inception of the program, up until 2009, to expand their tree production capacity. In 2009, TREES, in partnership with their local part-ner, Greener Ethiopia, produced about 2.4 million seed-lings. These seedlings were grown from seed in their Wabe, Qatbare and Cheha nurseries in the Gurage Zone. Throughout July and August, the seedlings were dis-tributed and planted by countless individuals, local or-ganizations and communities. Oversight and technical support were provided where possible and where need-ed to ensure the seedlings were planted and are cared for properly. In total, twenty-three species of trees were planted to increase diversity and provide a number of products and services to the people and the communi-ties that planted them. Beyond controlling erosion and increasing soil fertility, trees were also planted to pro-vide sustainable sources of fuel and construction wood, fodder, fruits, nuts, coffee, medicine, and more. These goods will be used for household consumption, while the excess products can be sold to supplement families' incomes. In attempting to meet the need for tree planting in Ethiopia, TREES and Greener Ethiopia have focused primarily on increasing production over the past sev-eral years. The program has been very successful to this end. In 2009 however, it became increasingly appar-ent that essential components of the program, including information sharing between partners and monitoring and reporting of program accomplishments, received decidedly less attention. For this reason, TREES scaled back its seedling production for 2009 in order to fo-

cus its resources on improving the coordination of the overall program. To adapt to the programmatic chal-lenges faced in Ethiopia, TREES, along with their part-ners, have concluded that the best way to strengthen the program would be to put a full-time coordinator on the ground in Ethiopia. At the end of October, that is exactly what they did. Now based in Ethiopia, Program Coordinator Gabriel Buttram will be working closely with Greener Ethiopia to institute new processes to improve important compo-nents of the program, including project design, budget-ing, training, monitoring and reporting. He will also be working to extend TREES' assistance even further in 2010, through creating partnerships and synergies with more community groups and organizations throughout the country. In TREES' experience, the decisions to

send coordinators Josh Bogart (Honduras) and David Tye (Tanzania) to the fi eld full-time have been a boon to both programs, and we are confi dent that Gabe will be as successful in Ethiopia. Be sure to check out the project page on our website periodically to fi nd out how the program is progressing.

Greener Ethiopia and Trees for the Future staff outside their offi ce in Addis Ababa


Introducing Leandro Monteiro

Introducing Mathius Lukwago

In October Leandro Monteiro joined our team at the main offi ce in Silver Spring, Maryland. Leandro will be taking over Gabriel Buttram's position as Business Partnerships Coordinator, as Gabe was stationed in Ethiopia as of October. Leandro has a profes-sional background in marketing and communications and looks forward to using these skills to coordinate current partnerships and to seek out new partnerships with businesses interested in helping to grow our program. As a native of Brazil and an Inter-national Studies major in college, he is excited to be working in an environment where he can put his experience to use for a great cause and work with great people around the world.

Mathius Lukwago is the Uganda Program Coordinator for Trees for the Future. He joined Trees for the Future in May of this year and has proven to be an excellent asset in promoting tree planting and working with local com-munities throughout Uganda. Mathius grew up in Gombe Village in Mityana District in Central Uganda. According to Mathius, "By the time I was born I found our home was deep in the middle of forest, and people used to call us children from the forest. Personally I loved forest life; and most of my life I spent in the forest, especially during hot days." As Mathius grew older, he became involved in the Ugandan Scouts and became very interested in Scout Law 6: A scout con-serves nature. Mathius studied Counseling, Psychology, and Community Work at the Mengo Technical Institute and at the Christian University of Mukono. After he completed his degrees, he left the village he grew up in. "…The forests I used to protect were destroyed without mercy. Our home, which was deep in the forest, is now like a desert; all the trees were cut down." Mathius now spends considerable time talking with people about the importance of trees, but it is always diffi cult to convince rural farmers to protect trees and plant more trees. After college, Mathius joined the National Scout Program, which allowed him to begin working with scouts on tree planting projects. He has spent time working with the scouts and local schools to encourage them to establish tree nurseries and plant trees in the local communities. Mathius is pleased to be working with Trees for the Future because it reinforces his commitment to plant trees and refor-est Uganda. "The driving factor to pro-mote tree planting is what will I say when my children and grandchildren ask me 'What did you do to protect the environ-ment?" Now with the support of Trees for the Future Mathius can continue working with the love of trees he developed so many years ago growing up in the forests of Central Uganda.


Best Pictures of 2009

The SAM (Sustainability through Agriculture and Micro-Enterprise) Project is based outside of Livingstone, Zam-bia. Trees for the Future has already provided thousands of seeds to assist these sustainable agriculture and small

enterprise development projects.

School children and community members in Thomas, Arcahaie are working to rehabilitate their land with the help of Trees for the Future. These school children are

planting trees along a degraded hillside.

India - In November, 15,000 seedlings were planted in Nallavanpalayam, Savalpoondi,

Melkachirappattu, Varagur, Meyyur and Nachananthal Villages, and Tamil Nadu

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Winter 2009 Newsletter

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