Summer 2007 Newsletter

In February, Gabriel “Gabby” Mondragon joinedus as our permanent representative for the SoutheastAsia Region. This is something we had been thinkingabout for a long time and now Gabby and his friendsare bringing some new ideas to your program:

A Cooperative that WorksThe Province of Zambales has 22 towns. Each of

these has a chapter of a farmers' cooperative called"TRD" (Total Rural Development) – making for a totalmembership of over 4,000 families doing what theycan to sustainably farm the harsh uplands that make up

most of the province. They are making some excitingadvances.A centuy ago, most of these mountains were coveredwith dense forests. Families lived well with the forestsproviding for nearly all of their needs. Now, due toextensive logging and deforestation, they try to hold onto their livelihoods by practicing "kaingin" (slash-and-burn) farming. It was in Zambales where I first sawentire mountain sides burning through the night (andsaw the devastating consequences in the rainy seasonthat followed).With Gabby's help, we have been providing tree seeds

and training support to many of thesecommunities. Most farmers are con-vinced that planting trees is the onlyway to save their homes and theirway of life. Some very impressiveideas have been demonstrated: oneexample is Danny Zembro's hill-side planting of a combination ofLeucaena trees with bananas,pineapple and papaya. The diversityeliminates many pest problems whilethe deep-rooted trees bring nutrientsback to the topsoil. Danny gets topprices for his high quality produce.Because of the program’s success,

the Town Council of Botolan is pro-viding TREES a two acre facilityalong the national highway (the mainroad of Zambales) with a modernoffice. Over several years, TREESand the local groups have beenworking together to build a demon-stration of the

Johnny Ipil-Seed News Vol. XV, No. 2

The quarterly newsletter of Trees for the FutureSummer 2007 Vol. XV, No. 2

Philippines Update: Hard Work and Innovation Bring Results

continued page 2

Local farmers plant Leucaena seedlings and wildlings of the Australian pine(Casuarina equisetifolia) in the river

Forest Garden concept at the site. Thiscenter - headquarters for the coopera-tive - will now also be the headquartersfor the Southeast Asia program ofTREES. The rent for the facility is nom-inal, and we get two part-time farmworkers to support the staff.

As TREES program has gainedmomentum, the cooperative has spreadto five new towns inthe Subic BayAutonomous Zone, andalso to San Marcelinowhere another 200families want to beginreforesting the area.Our technicians arealso being asked tohelp other groups southof Manila.In Botolan itself, thereis a seed productionorchard of about 250Leucaena trees (typeK-67), which hasproven excellent forbringing life back touplands covered with lahar (volcanicash). There is another seed orchard onour farm in Pozorrubio, Pangasinan,where 160 trees are now producing theK-676 type seeds. In the rainy seasonto begin in August, we intend to plantseveral other multi-purpose tree speciesas a continuous seed source. Gabby hasalso presented his program to thePhilippine Airlines' PAL Foundation inthe hope of gaining their participation.We have asked them to plant one tree (ata cost of 2 Pesos or about ten cents) forevery passenger. With their help, andthat of other Philippine businesses, thePhilippines could be turned green again.

Trees Planted in the RiverbedIn late 1991, Mt. Pinatubo erupted,

depositing over two billion tons of lahar

in the town of Botolan, Zambales. Over5,600 families from the uplands, mostlyaborigines who call themselves"Pinatubos", were evacuated to refugeecenters.When they finally returned to theirhomes in 1995, they found the land cov-ered with thick, acidic, white ash - mak-ing farming nearly impossible. We

have been assisting these families todevelop livelihood projects, mostlyinvolving tree planting, ever since.The Bugao River which borders their

land was filled with lahar. The dryriverbed rose as much as 32 feet at itsmouth from the ash deposition. When Ifirst worked there as a Peace CorpsVolunteer, the river was about 70 meterswide and about 3 meters deep in someplaces, and I used to swim it to get tothe upland villages. Now it's over threekilometers wide and about a half inchdeep with plenty of quicksand. A lot ofprivate lands, buried under the ash, arenow useless to the owners.With few trees on the mountains, the

winds sweep down on the river, pickingup the white dust and blowing it into thetown. This poses a serious health hazard


Johnny Ipil-Seed News is aquarterly newsletter of TREESFOR THE FUTURE, Inc., anonprofit organization dedicatedto helping people of the world’spoorest communities to beginenvironmentally beneficial, self-help projects.This newsletter is printed by

wind energy on recycled paperwith soy-based ink and is sent toall supporting members toinform them of recent events,plans, financial matters and howtheir support is helping people.

BOARD OF DIRECTORSDr. John R. Moore, Dr. PeterFalk, Mr. Oscar Gruspe, Mr.Dave Deppner, Mr. Bedru

Sultan, Ms. Marilou Herman

FOUNDERSDave and Grace Deppner

STAFFJohn Leary

Joell GallardoCorrie MauldinGorav Seth

Brandy Lellou

FIELD TECHNICIANSGabby Mondragon, N. PhilippinesDr. Ron Soriano, S. PhilippinesJorge Betancourt, HondurasGuillermo Valle, Honduras

Omar Ndao, SenegalEugene Edwards, Belize

Subramanian Periyasamy, IndiaLouis Nkembi, Cameroon

Dr. Yigezu Shimeles, EthiopiaMatt Gilbride, Panama

To receive this newsletter or formore information, contact:TREES FOR THE FUTUREThe Loret Miller Ruppe

Center forSustainable Development

P.O. Box 7027Silver Spring, MD 20907Toll Free: 1-800-643-0001

Ph: [email protected]

WWW.PLANT-TREES.ORG

Hard Work and Innovation (cont’d from page 1)

At the Barangay meeting, farmers ask Dave Deppner aboutforage plants for dairy goats.

, and in times of strong winds (which blow up withoutwarning) Botolan town gets a total "white-out" whenall traffic stops and it's dangerous even to walk outside.Gabby and local farmers started thinking about what

would happen if they planted trees in the river. Theystarted exploring and experimenting.One of the first things they noted is that "Agoho" trees(Australian Pine) had already started making a come-back. Although it is disliked in many parts of the worlddue to its aggressive nature, this is a very valuable treeto Filipinos. In this case, it was also the beginning of aseries of windbreaks. Additionally, as they dug down15 to 20 inches in the lahar, the people were surprisedto learn that a great amount of water was runningunderneath, on its way to the sea. This "useless" riverbed is actually a massive irrigated field!They now plan to raise livestock on the higher parts

of the riverbed, especially milking goats which will bekept in pens. Tree leaves and Napier grass make a goodration and the cooperative is already pasteurizing andbottling the goat milk, which has a ready market in thenearby towns.The participating farmers started gathering agoho

wildlings and planting them on the same "lazy W" for-mation that the naturally regeneration was alreadyforming. Behind the windbreak, other species, includ-ing Leucaena trees and forage grasses, are being plant-ed - at the driest time of the year (due to the water run-ning underneath)!After two months, the trees are growing well with

only minimum mortality. The former landowners,unable to find their buried properties, are eachworking a part of this new project. The coop-erative members are very hopeful of turningthese wastelands into productive fields andwindbreaks which can soon end the deadly"whiteouts" that threaten Botolan town.

To the SouthThanks to the continuing hard work of our

board member Marilou Herman and herMarilou Cares Foundation, we continue toexpand our program in Antique Province onthe Island of Panay. This is, by far, the poor-est part of the Philippines, with many peoplemigrating there to flee the endless warfare onthe nearby Island of Mindanao.

Our local technicians there are Theresa

"Terai" Cahilig, Cuny, and Edith. We have also provid-ed agro-forestry certification to the municipal nurserymanager in San Jose, the capital of Antique, who ishelping develop municipal nurseries throughout theprovince.Much of the land was first degraded by logging, oftenillegal. There was no natural regeneration because thecleared lands were soon turned into grazing areas forgoats and cattle, brought across from Mindoro by therefugees. If these uplands are to be saved, the first stepwill be to convince local farmers to adopt an environ-mentally sustainable forage system. This will includea combination of trees and highly productive grasses,such as dwarf Napier grass, which is being intro-duced now.The mayor of San Jose believes this is the only possi-ble solution for saving these uplands and is helping byconstructing a municipal goat farm in his town, whichwill show the benefits of confined rearing, and willhave seeds and root cuttings available for distributionto livestock raisers in the area. He is also plantingmany fast-growing, multi-purpose trees along localroadsides to show more people the benefits of plantingtrees.From training sites such as these, which are being

started in many areas of the Philippines, TREES andour local partners believe this program will show localfarmers how they can save their lands, while sustain-ably increasing crop production.


Regional coordinator Gabriel Mondragon with farm manager DickCruz at nursery with Acacia mangium trees.

-Dave Deppner

Ethiopia Update: Two Million Trees!Ethiopia has a 3,000 year-old tradition of peopleworking together to solve mutual problems. We choseto start our tree planting program in the Gurage Zone,where we have previously worked with some verysuccessful results and where, because of this, we havestrong support.But a lot still remains to be done and so, on ourreturn to the area in April, we told our local partner,Greener Ethiopia, that we had the resources andability to help them plant about 1,600,000 trees this

season. Their answer was typical: "why not just planttwo million?" And so, with that, we started looking atthe problems and the possibilities.

Bringing Back Trees NaturallyThe Gurage Zone runs from about 130 to 170 km.southwest of Addis Ababa. Somewhat triangular inshape, it is divided by a range of mountains that turnit into two triangular areas. There is a rough road thatcuts through the mountains from Butajira on the eastto Wolkete on the west, with busses, but nobody takesthe bus there unless they have to.On the eastern side of the region things are better.The lands are farmed so that the soils are carefullymaintained, as they have been for many centuries.Most of the environmental concerns arise in themountainous areas. There, pioneer species of treeswere planted, starting about five years ago, and the

results have been spectacular. Once the steep moun-tainsides were protected from grazing animals andfire through a cooperative program, natural regenera-tion has occurred. For every tree planted in the pro-gram, another four or five trees, mostly indigenousconifers, have returned.This implies that our statements to people concernedabout global warming are too conservative. We saythat for every one tree we plant, approximately 50 lbs.of carbon dioxide is sequestered. But now, instead of

one tree, we have five or six doing the job!Typically, we expect the trees in our projects to livefor 30 years or more. However, we what we see inthese mountains shows that if local people areallowed to manage the land correctly, there is no rea-son to expect the tree cover will not be there for cen-turies to come. The conclusion is that curbing globalclimate change begins by allowing the people of thesedegraded lands to have a say in the management ofthe lands that are their home.The Agriculture Office in the Gurage zone has plant-ed 800,000 trees, many of them jointly with GreenerEthiopia. In addition, Dr. Shimeles, our programleader, is planting about 120,000 more on lands in thenearby mountainous area. This location is close tothe Rift Valley, where very serious erosion is of greatconcern because of the large herds of grazing cattle.We hope to expand the program into the Valley by


Gullies are being protected with tree and grass combinations. In less than four years, these lands can be restored tosustainable productivity.


next year.Across the mountains to the west, the situation ismuch more serious. This area, slightly sloping, hasextremely fragile volcanic soil that, unprotected, rap-idly washes away. In one rainstorm, a gully can be cutin which you could hide a large bus.This area of land, about 340 square kilometers, sup-ports nearly two million families. As human popula-tions have grown, so did livestock numbers. The car-rying capacity of the land was exceeded at least tenyears back and the situation has snowballed eversince. Now gullies crisscross the land, pushing forageproduction into further decline as the size of the herdscontinue to expand.That is why two of our local technicians in the pro-gram are trained livestock experts. Both are commit-ted to developing intense, "cut-and-carry" forage sys-tems - which begin by planting forage trees and grass-es in the gullies to fill them with soil and bring themback to productive life.

Donkey CityWhat is especially striking about rural Ethiopia isthe extreme burden carried by women. It's common tosee a woman staggering down the road to the marketwith half of a large tree on her back, hoping to sell itfor perhaps two dollars.With this, the number of trees is rapidly declining,and women are walking farther than ever with theseloads. Addressingthis issue is a pri-mary priority of ourreforestation pro-gram. Certainly,families there arelooking to TREESand GreenerEthiopia to lead theway.We have started a“women in devel-opment” programthat will, in thisfirst season, bringdirect relief towomen in some700 families. One

effort has begun in the town of Che'Ha, where a darkbrown stream wanders across the land. Thousands ofcattle are driven to it daily to drink and cool them-selves in the water, while downstream, women arewashing their clothes. Is there an answer to solve thisproblem? Yes, along the stream is a spring with clean,sweet, water. However, to get to it, you have to crawldown into a steep ravine and carry containers back upand it can be dangerous.We are constructing a cement catchment there andwill soon add a pump driven by a solar panel. Thiswill take the water to an overhead tank, next to a con-crete building that will be a laundry and bathhouse,serving some 250 families. From the tank, the pipescarry water to a nearby school. Children can thenbring containers in the morning which will be filledfor them to carry home in the afternoon.The women’s program is also providing donkeys.TREES currently owns about 50 donkeys which arebeing fed nutritious grasses before being distributedin different villages. At dawn the day before Easter,one woman walked into the compound. She had beenwalking all night, but she made it. She said she want-ed her group to be the first to register for a donkey.We talked about it for a while and she said, yes, onedonkey can carry about as much as three women, butshe pointed out that a donkey pulling a cart can do thework of ten, probably 12 women.One donkey costs the program about $60 and the cart

only costs $80, sowe spent theremainder of theday designing thecart. Now our 50donkeys, with carts,can help another500 or more fami-lies.What do donkeycarts have to dowith tree planting?First of all, it getsentire familiesinvolved. Therepayment for thisinvestment isn'tmoney - it's trees

Ethiopia Update: Two Million Trees!

A donkey pulling a cart can do as much work as 10-12 women. Our don-keys are working to help more families.

planted! The women in the program are now moremobile and can plant trees on the more distant, moredegraded lands where they are most needed. And thekinds of trees they are planting can be harvestedrepeatedly, year after year, stabilizing the land, savingthe precious water, and at the same time starting anatural regeneration of tree species native to the area.We see this as a good investment in the community -and in the environment.

The Bio-VillageNear the town of Wolkete, abouteight years ago, a foundation inEurope provided a grant to constructand operate a training center, whichthey called the "Bio-Village.” Thebuildings were designed much likelocal houses, called "Tikuls,” exceptmuch larger.The center still stands there today,slowly decaying. The funders sawtheir project being systematicallyripped off and simply closed theirbooks on it. The hundreds of thou-sands of rural families there, whosaw this center as the only possibleway to learn about better agriculturalsystems, have been bitterly disap-pointed.Harmony Farms, a private businesspartnering with TREES, did their best to save theCenter. They donated goats and cattle for the live-stock training, and even trucked water there becausethe well that was planned was never drilled.Having this training center is one key piece of thedevelopment plan that is missing. For your program,that missing piece could be supporting the planting ofhundreds of thousands of trees each year, while pro-viding the community sustainable opportunities toimprove their livelihoods.Expanding our program in succeeding years dependson having training centers that can serve not only thepeople of the Gurage, but also Oromia and other near-by communities where deforestation takes a great tollon the land each year. The failure to open this centerhas been a serious blow to local families, not only inthe Gurage, but far beyond the area. This could be asource of continuing education in appropriate technol-ogy, allowing them to manage their lands in a moresustainable manner. And, as

agricultural production increases, it could serve as anagri-business center, helping farmers buy needed sup-plies while also processing their products to assurethem more favorable prices. TREES and GreenerEthiopia continue to seek sponsors so this facility canreach its true potential.It's the hope of both Greener Ethiopia and TREESthat we can rebuild and open that center. The govern-

ment has already given the site to Greener Ethiopia.With that, Greener Ethiopia is seeking help from themany foundations and non-profit organizations inAddis Ababa. If they can get that help, your programwill grow far beyond the Gurage, planting millionsmore trees in the years ahead. We wish them greatsuccess.

Johnny Ipil-Seed News Vol. XV, No.2

The Bio-village compound sits empty while local farmers desperately needappropriate technology to lift them out of poverty.

-Dave Deppner

Over the last two decades,TREES has helped support sev-eral projects in Cameroon, anincredibly ecologically and cul-turally varied country in WestAfrica . Just six months ago,we were fortunate enough tosolidify a growing relationshipwith Louis Nkembi, an ecolo-gist and the founder of theenvironmental non-profit,ERuDeF, the EnvironmentalRural DevelopmentFoundation, based in theSouthwest province.As our Cameroon FieldRepresentative, Louis hastoured the three westernprovinces of Cameroon, con-ducting workshops and offeringon-site training for farmergroups interested in starting or continuing agro-forestry and reforestation projects. To date, we havefocused our efforts in the Southwest province, work-ing with over 15 groups who have already receivedseeds and planted their nurseries. These farmersanticipate transplanting up to 500,000 seedlings forthe upcoming rainy season that will begin in August.With your help, we hope to expand this project intoa region-wide program by next year, enabling us tohelp address the needs of rural farmers throughout thewestern highlands of Cameroon which include theSouthwest, West and Northwest provinces. Much ofthe mountain ecosystem throughout these provinceshas been destroyed by logging and slash-and-burnfarming techniques which are used because of limitedresources. This has led to the loss of soil fertility andwatershed destruction, threatened plant and animalbiodiversity, and degraded livelihoods and property.One of the most serious impacts on the people andlandscape has been landslides. Landslides havecaused hundreds of deaths along with the loss of pro-ductive forest, cropland and property over the last 50years. The Magha and Fossimondi landslides in 2003cost 25 lives and destoyed property valued at overtwo million dollars. The Limbe landslide of 2001destroyed 108 houses and left over 1000 homeless.Agroforestry and reforestation projects in the high-lands are vital to reestablishing

vegetation in these areas to solve both the environ-mental and economic problems that plague thesesmall-scale farmers. Planting woodlots to providefuelwood and timber eases pressure on the existingnatural resources, and incorporating agroforestry tech-niques such as alley cropping, contour planting andlive fencing will help to stop soil erosion and increasefertility on hillsides. The trees will provide farmerswith food, fodder, medicine and other necessities theyneed to improve their subsistence and cash income.Nearly 95% of the 3 million people who live in theNW, W and SW provinces of Cameroon are farmers.Louis estimates thath the highland program will beable to plant over 800,000 trees in this area at a costof only six cents per tree, with a total budget of$53,000. The immediate and long-term benefits ofthe program include:- Increased fuel-wood production and developmentof sustainable energy alternatives such as solar stovesand ovens- Increased ground and surface water volume andhousehold water supply- Begin to improve 70% of the degraded landscape inthe severely eroded highlands within three years- Increased rural household cash income of at least20% in each of the selected communities by the fifthyear of implementation


Cameroon Update: Introducing the Highlands Project

A training workshop for several women’s groups in the Southwest province conduct-ed by Trees for the Future in conjunction with the Rural Development Centre.

-Corrie Mauldin

Through the kindness of Guillermo Valle and hisfoundation, FUNDARBOL, we have been able toestablish a regional office in Tegucigalpa, the Capitolof Honduras. With that, Jorge Betancourt has joinedus as our Central America regional program coordina-tor.The region consists of Honduras, Nicaragua, ElSalvador, Belize and Guatemala. It is expected thatadditional projects will soon begin in the Yucatan areaof Mexico as well.Jorge has more thantwenty years of experienceas Associate Director forNatural Resources, PeaceCorps Honduras, and lateras consultant for UnitedNations programs throughSERTA, the environmentaland natural resourcesoffice of Honduras. He isbeing assisted by a third-year Peace Corps volun-teer, Joshua Bogart, whoworks from his assignedvillage in northeastHonduras.In this first busy seasonof our country program,most of their work hasbeen to develop allianceswithin Honduras. As theseasonal rains begin inJune and July, Jorge willhave more time to visitsites in these other coun-tries as well where groupshave made requests fortechnical assistance incommunity agroforestry and reforestation projects.Our goal for 2007 has been to assist in the plantingof up to 1,400,000 trees. In mid-May, several groupshad planted over 3 million seeds, which has resultedin 2, 400,000 tree seedlings ready to plant this June.Based on past experience, over 2 million of thoseshould survive the first critical, rainy season.The groups involved in the planting include: FUN-DARBOL, with eight community nurseries; 15 Peace

Corps volunteers’ communities, several communitiesin Santa Barbara and San Marcos de Colon, on theborder with Nicaragua.The project ni Santa Barbara is sponsored by theEpiscopal Diocese of Honduras and supported bytheir church in Washington DC. This program is inthe mountainous coffee-producing area. The localleader is Roy Lara, who has many years' experiencedeveloping successful agro-forestry projects.On the most recent trip, staff technician Dave

Deppner met with the lead-ers of these group projectsand saw the beginning oftwo new projects that weare asked to assist. Thefirst is in the town ofSiguatpeche where thetown council has decidedto start a one million treeproject to protect theirupland water sources. Theleader of this project isOscar Ochoa who, throughhis SETRO organization, isa major supplier of treesseeds for our projectsworldwide and who steadi-ly provides TREES withimportant technology thatwe can offer to our com-munity leaders throughoutthe developing world.In the San Pedro Sulaarea, we are working withCampisa, an organizationformed by RobertoFlores-Gomez and hisfamily. Campisa has

established an environmental training center there anda school for urban youth.The school takes young people off the street, offersthem decent living conditions and a purpose in life.The training they receive emphasizes saving andrestoring the environment. In the months ahead, wehope to assist Campisa to develop a large forest-gar-den at this school, as a demonstration of how peoplecan restore degraded lands to sustained productivity.


Honduras Update: Our New Regional Office

Oscar Ochoa, owner of Semillas Tropical, shows off a five-year old African Mahogany Tree, which grows well inHonduras. He has provided technological support to thetechnicians in our program and now is helping the town of

Siguatepeche to begin a million tree project.

An additional program, with theOffice of the First Lady ofHonduras, is intended to address theincreasingly serious problem of malnu-trition, especially among young chil-dren in rural areas. More than 24% ofprimary school students are unable tomeet minimum grade standards forlack of protein in the diet.Much of this is due to a lack of fire-wood: because beans, the main proteinsource, require a lot of cooking, manychildren are eating roots such as cassa-va instead. These roots provide littleprotein.We are distributing seeds of vegetablesand trees, especially the Moringa tree(known as the "one-a-day tree" becausethe leaves are an excellent, flavorfulsource of protein and vitamins). Bynext year, we hope to have forest gardens in at least3,000 schools.While Honduras is often considered as the mostenvironmentally degraded part of Central America, agood deal of appropriate technology for land restora-tion and sustainable land use is being developedthere, integrating many useful ideas from local com-munities. Our the dispersal of our AgrforestryTraining Manual, now being translated into Spanish,should help with this technology transfer. New agro-forestry technology such as Jatropha tree biofuel tech-

niques are being developed in southern Honduras.Most of all, people in Honduras are now starting torecognize that as the critical water shortage continuesto worsen, the threat can be largely addressed bybringing tree cover and forests back to the barrenuplands. Through all these efforts, Honduras sees afuture with hope. TREES is pleased to have had a bigpart in that.


Guillermo Valle of FUNDARBOL and TREES regionalrepresentative Jorge Betancourt setting up our regional

office in Tegucigalpa.

Grace Deppner distributes seeds of Moringa trees toLindsey, a Peace Corps Volunteer in Santa Elena,

Honduras to bolster a nutrition program.

One of eight FUNDARBOL community nurseries located throughout south-ern Honduras. This year they have planted more than 750,000 seedlings to

distribute as the seasonal rains arrive.

-Dave Deppner

On a recent warm spring day in May, Gorav, my hus-bad, Kamweti and I experienced a day at PolyfaceFarm in Swoope, Virginia. I had first heard about thisgrass-based livestock farm and its innovator, JoelSalatin, from reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma byMichael Pollan, an amazing account of one man’ssearch into America’s relationship with food. Pollandevotes over 60 pages of his book to Salatin, describ-ing the man behind one of the most environmentallyand economically beneficial livestock systems on theEast Coast, if not the nation.While touring Salatin’s farm (Swoope, VA) alongwith a group of students and researchers fromVirginia Tech, it was clear that we were witnessingsomething special. Salatin’s land encompasses over550 acres, of which nearly 400 remain forested. Onthe remainder, where he raises beef, pork, poultry(broilers, eggs, turkeys) and rabbits on less than 200acres, is now covered in native Shenandoah Valleygrasses which have thrived due to his well-designedland management practices.His intricate livestock management system supportsthe critical elements of plant and animal diversity andtheir relationships within nature. Every three days,Salatin rotates his 100 or so cows –which are not vaccinated norreceive any antibiotics – in one acreplots surrounded by a single wireelectric fence. A large canvascanopy on wheels provides movableshade for the cows, which allowsSalatin to easily control the distribu-tion of organic manure in his fields.A few days after the cows are relo-cated, Salatin’s “pasture sanitationprogram,” which consists of 10,000laying hens (in mobile coop hous-es), is moved onto the plot previ-ously occupied by the cows. Thesehens roam freely in the freshlygrazed grass, where they control flylarvae and other pests while

adding another dose of high- nitrate fertilizer to theground. Salatin’s broilers – his most profitable opera-tion – also help to fertilize the pastures. The 4,000birds are kept in small floorless chicken coops thatare moved across the fields every few days.In the winter, Salatin is no less innovative. Hiscows and pigs stay inside a multi-use barn that wasbuilt using local materials at less than $1 per squarefoot. The cow manure is allowed to build up on thefloor, and is continuously covered with layers of hay,grass, woodchips and whole seed corn. This layeringgoes on all winter, and by spring, the cows are stand-ing several feet high on a warm, dry mixture ofmanure and organic matter. (Salatin has the feedingtroughs fixed to a pulley system to raise them as thefloor increases in height). After sending the cows outto pasture in the spring, Salatin brings in his“Pigaerators,” who, while hunting through the manurefor the fermented corn kernels, turn and aerate themanure mixture. The composted manure from thisprocess is the only fertilizer he needs for his gardensand fields.As if creating and managing these amazing grass-based livestock systems weren’t enough, Salatin givesfrequent tours of his farm and travels nationally tospeak about his sustainable farming practices. He hasalso written several books about his family farm,farming practices and his beliefs about the currentfood system and the politics behind it. To learn moreplease go to: http://polyfacefarms.com


Sustainable Living: The Polyface Farm Tour

Joel Salatin demonstrates his “pasture sanitation program” in action, thanks tohis hardworking flock of avian workers.

To our readers: There is an often unnoticed but very close rela-tionship between livestock management systems and environ-mental degradation. This article describes ann innovative systembeing developed in the United States. In succeeding issues, wehope to present other ideas about how livestock raisers aroundthe world are addressing this issue. Your comments are sincerelysought.

-Corrie Mauldin


John Leary joined TREES literally the morning afterhe returned from serving with Peace Corps Senegal,where he had worked on agroforestry extension forthree years. In the nearly four years he has been atTrees for the Future, he has leveraged his regionalknowledge to greatly expand our presence in WestAfrica and turned our Senegal program into a modelfor long-term sustainability, as evidenced by our newregional training center which exists because of hisunwavering support.For many years John has tirelessly worked as an agro-forestry technician and operations manager, but nowhe has decided that it is time to move on to new chal-lenges and opportunities. He will still be connectedwith our work in Mali and Senegal, and will be a valu-able resource for our community. All of us at TREESwill miss his energy, and we wish him the best of luck.

Goodbye and Best Wishes to John Leary

John examining plants at a nursery on a recent trip toSenegal, where he had served as a Peace Corps volunteer

for three years.

Congratulations to our Spring Agroforestry Training Graduates!Our long-distance agroforestry training program is providing valuable knowledge to hundreds of communityleaders every year. We would like to thank all who have participated, and would like to give recognition to ourrecent graduates. To sign up for this program, please call, email or write to us.

Jackson Wafula, Kitale, KenyaRobert Muloki, Mukono, UgandaDimitri Harmegnies, BelgiumSanjay Uphaday, IndiaAileen Renoblas, Digos City, PhilippinesJabes Khwabi, Zambia Forest College, ZambiaAmos Owoko Ochola, Uranga, KenyaEdwin Nkwera, Dar Es Salaam, TanzaniaAmmon Sink, Millersville, MD, USAFai Cassian Ndi, Trees for Development, Bamenda, CameroonPolivios D. Valendis, Addis Ababa, EthiopiaK. Velmurugan, Thalaivasal, IndiaMunashe D. Shoko, Africa University, Mutare, ZimbabweGarcia V Matondo, The Salvation Army, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of CongoPaulino M Damiano, Save Mt. Kenya Forest From Extinction Group, Nairobi, Kenya,

Jabes Khwabi, Zambia

On a hot, dusty day in April, Omar Ndao, Trees for theFuture’s Field Representative in Senegal, stood in frontof a crowd of people on the opening day for our agro-forestry training center in Kaffrine, Senegal. Under atent that stood next to the demonstration site, Omar puthis cell phone on speaker and held it high in the air.Four thousand miles away, gathered around a phone atour headquarters in Maryland, TREES techniciansaddressed the excited crowd with an opening dayspeech. We spoke of reclaiming degraded landsthroughout the world and we told them that they arenot alone….that at that very moment we were alsoinvolved with countless other communities throughoutthe world trying to accomplish the same thing: to refor-est degraded lands and profit from living sustainablythrough agroforestry-based businesses.Omar, who has been blessed with superb oratory

skills, excited the crowd by speaking about specificfamilies who are already making money through agro-forestry practices in our program, and by talking aboutfuture plans to include biofuels as an additionalincome-generating activity in the region. Omar’smessage to his agemates (translated from Wolof): “Wemust build our lives here, and we can do it with agro-forestry. God gave us life and he gave us a lot of land,

and we must use what He gave us.”Six hours away on the coast of Senegal, hundreds of

young unnamed African men, all of whom are Omar’sage, prepare to board boats that will take them on adangerous journey north toward Spain where theyhope to survive the swim to the shore and silent inte-gration into Europe’s job market. For these young men,the gamble seems worthwhile, but so much can be lost.Just the month before the TREES center opened, therewas a funeral in Kaffrine for a man who drowned in thewaters off the coast of Spain.Our training center provides alternatives to this des-

perate situation by spreading ideas and technologies -and hope of a better life on native soil. The center isfive kilometers south of the city of Kaffrine at a majorcrossroads, which is ideal because of the heavy trafficthat passes in front of the center every day. Omar’shorse, named Chially, who for five years has traveledthe dirt paths connecting the 25 villages Omar is work-ing with, can rest. Now it is much easier for people inthe Department of Kaffrine to come to Omar, ratherthan Omar having to go and visit everyone in theDepartment of Kaffrine!


Senegal: New Centre de la Promotion de Agroforestrie

-John Leary


Business PartnersWith rising global awareness about climate change, more and more businesses have teamed up with us in tree-planting partnerships. These partnerships are allowing us to plant more trees than ever before, while providingcarbon offsets to these innovative, forward thinking, socially responsible businesses. We would like to take thetime to thank our old and new business partners by listing them here. Please support these businesses! Learnmore about them at: www.plant-trees.org/partnerships

Alexander Book Co.Bebecito OrganicBeeceuticalsBetterworld TelecomBroad Street Books of GhentCafe ImportsCommunity Printers, Inc.Developmentseed.orgEcoist41 PoundsFree Recycling.comGreen DimesHazelnut KidsIEcoffeeradio.comIn TicketingInn Serendipity

Alternative Treatment International, Inc.Bo Tree Bodymind CenterCafe ImportsMojo CoffeeSignature CoffeeSimmons Natural BodycareThanksgiving CoffeeWorking Assets

Jade YogaJunk to JewelsKarmapaloozaLiveitgreen.comModernCowgirl.comNosweatshop.comNutrisoda - Fresh Air TourOBoZ FootwearOndah1% For The PlanetPapoose Creek LodgePermaworldPinehurst InnProgressiveKidReal GoodsThe Recycled Products Cooperative

Rhythym InletSesa TeaSkytone Printing and GraphicsSolar PublishingSupport with 1040.comThetreegrove.comThe Yoga LoftThisNext.comThe Green KangarooVerde EnergyWildland AdventuresYogAdventuresZAP Cars

Plant-a-Tree PartnershipsThese businesses support our tree planting projects based on their sales

Global Cooling BusinessesThese businesses plant trees to offset all of their carbon dioxide emissions

Here are some of our new partners which some of our members may not be familiar withThisNext.com-Ondah.com-41 pounds-Liveitgreen.comOBoZ footwear-


By May of this year, your organization had plantedsome 53 million trees worldwide since TREES wasfirst incorporated back in 1988. Thanks for all the helpand guidance you've provided.Concern about global climate

change has gone from a whisperto a deafening roar over the pastfew years. What was once so eas-ily denied has now become a factin all of our lives. As concern hasgrown, so have the claims anddenials, the scare tactics, and themyriad of ways to become “car-bon neutral.”We are receiving more and moreemails and calls from concernedindividuals who wonder what thefuture holds and what they can doto reduce their carbon footprint inthe immediate future.Because of these concerns and

questions, we at Trees for theFuture are striving to continuous-ly improve our knowledge of cli-mate change, carbon emissions, and the role that thetrees we help to plant play in this phenomenon.It is important to remind people that we don’t plant

trees with the specific intent of offsetting carbon emis-sions. We do, however, see the CO2 thatour trees take in as being a beneficial part ofthe work we do, and want to share that ben-efit with those individuals and businessinterested in becoming more energy-effi-cient. Potentially up to 1 million tons ofCO2 is being sequestered by the trees wehave planted over the last 20 years, turninga hazardous greenhouse gas into shelter,food, medicines and other things people

need.In this way, by assisting people to plant trees to help

them meet their pressing needs, we're also making amajor contribution to the fight againstglobal warming.We offer you, your family or businessan opportunity to reduce your carbonfootprint. Consider the following:- The average fast-growing, multi-pur-pose tree we plant in the tropics or sub-tropics annually sequesters up to 50 lbsof carbon dioxide- An average American is responsiblefor annually causes the emission ofabout 19 tons of CO2. For a family offour, this would be about 77 tons.- It would therefore require the one-time planting of about 3,200 trees toremove these 77 tons of CO2 from theglobal atmosphere every year.Trees for the Future plants 3,200 treesfor approximately $320.To participate in our carbon offesttingprogram, please email or call us for a

Business Energy Audit form or Home Energy Auditform. Or contact us to learn about our Global CoolingAnswer Book, which is available for $5 plus $2 ship-ping.

A Note About Carbon Offsets

-Dave Deppner

When you find that allthose jokes about gettingold are true, they stopbeing so funny. So far thiswinter and spring I'vespent weeks in Belize,Honduras, the Philippinesand Ethiopia and, along theway, I've found that 13-hour airplane rides, icecold showers, straw mat-tresses and mountainclimbing aren't so much

fun anymore. And eating breakfast with mommy mon-key and her baby sitting on the table staring at yourorange juice has lost much of its former appeal.Now I'm being asked to come back to Ethiopia, to

spend a couple of weeks in Haiti, and another week inHonduras. The rest of the staff is starting to look some-what beat up as well. Still, it's getting trees planted -like never before - and, for us, that makes it all worthwhile. Because, as the scientists are declaring now inBrussels, the hands on the environmental clock arealso moving very fast. That makes it especially impor-tant that we show the world that there are answers,practical, low-cost, answers that bring fast results.That's the message we tried to bring to some 34,000

people who attended the first Green Festival inChicago recently. The whole bunch of us went. Wedrove - not a great idea. This was the sixth such envi-ronmental trade show where we had an exhibit. We'llgo to many more, I'm sure, because the time is short.People need to know what the program is achieving,and what it can achieve as more people and businessesjoin in.Once more, we ate the environmental hot dogs (with-out dogs) and fried chicken (without chicken). Wedrank the drinks brewed from some unidentified rootfrom some rainforest, to learn what other groups aredoing, to gain new members and, we hope, to makemany people more aware of the global environmentalsituation - and that something can be done, is beingdone, to make things better. We gave interviews for tel-evision stations and, wonderfully, some photographsof our projects were shown on Oprah Winfrey thatweekend.We found many of our new business partners also

there, showing people what they are doing to supportand expand your program worldwide, to save the envi-ronment. We made some friends

and, at least, got a lot of people thinking about theenvironment and how it affects their future.Still, there's much to be done. At least 95% of theexhibitors were there just to sell something to peoplewho were there to buy something to hang in their bath-rooms to show that they are "environmentally aware".Being aware, unfortunately, is a long way from beingactive.Now if all that concern, that energy, those resources,

were used to develop this and other programs torestore degraded lands, to bring atmospheric carbondown to acceptable levels, to develop more and betteralternatives to an economy built around fossil fuels, allof us could feel a lot more secure about our futures.I'm concerned not because I'm getting old and cranky,but because those scientists who earlier met in Paris,and are now meeting in Brussels, people whose repu-tations are beyond reproach and who now, finally, areable to freely discuss their findings, tell us that, at best,we have a half-dozen more years to do somethingabout all this. Before it's too late. Before the planet"tips". The hands on the clock are moving fast. Not somuch for me as for all of us. Please help and please tellyour friends to help as well.

Opinion - The Hands on the Clock

Johnny Ipil-Seed News Vol. XIV, No. 4

John Leary is interviewed about our work by aChicago TV station.

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Loret Miller Ruppe CenterP.O. Box 7027

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Printed by wind energy on recycled paper with soy ink

p. 1 Philippines Updatep. 4 Ethiopia Update - Two Million Trees!p. 7 Cameroon Highlands Project Intro.p. 8 Honduras Updatep. 10 Polyface Farm Tourp. 11 Goodbye John Learyp. 11 Agroforestry Graduatesp. 12 New Senegal Training Centerp. 13 Business Partnersp. 14 About Carbon Offsetsp. 15 Opinion: The Hands on the Clock

Inside Summer GoalsReaching Our Goal

In our winter edition, we told of the greatchallenge we face in planting nearly ninemillion trees in 2007. We'd like to report thatwe are nearing that goal, with some2,300,000 seedlings started in Ethiopia,2,100,000 in Honduras, 1,800,000 in thePhilippines and about 750,000 in WestAfrica. New projects are starting inCameroon, the Yucatan of Mexico and nowan exciting challenge in Rwanda.This is a good time to point out that we

never could have achieved this without thevision and hard work of people workingdaily in these communities. They're outthere in the rain, the bugs, the dust everyday helping friends and neighbors. Theygive long hours to their communities - andthey don't get paid very well. Their rewardcomes in another way: leaving their world abetter place than they found it.

This issue is dedicated to John Leary and allof the important work he did for our organiza-tion, building it into what it is today. We’ll

miss you John!

Summer 2007 Newsletter

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