1000 trees a year 1000 acres of rainforest forever

Ok, we know that you just heard from us. But tomorrow is a matching funds bonus day on GlobalGiving, meaning that when you donate tomorrow we’ll get a buck fifty for every dollar you donate.  

We thought you might like to know.  You can donate at this link tomorrow, Wednesday, starting at 9:00 am EST for the 50% match. 

Why contribute? Well let me tell you a little bit about what it is we do. 

What is your mission? What does that mean?

For Camino Verde, our mission is to make sure that future generations get to enjoy the Amazon rainforest.  

Underlying that mission is a vision of what’s possible. It’s a vision of human beings and other biological communities operating in mutually supportive cohesion. It’s a vision that says that what’s good for nature is also good for us. It’s a vision that many of us have seen and felt palpably – in the agro-forestry gardens of native communities, in the wild-like mosaics of traditional crop arrays, in the cooling shade of trees you planted yourself, the undeniable gauge of any successful ecological restoration effort.  

This vision stands in stark contrast with another vision – of the forest as little more than a mine.  Of rainforest destruction as an inevitable pathway of economic development, of a forest’s benefit measured in dollars and without sense.  This is what we call the problem.  Can you tell that our mission grapples with this problem directly? 

For the Amazon to persist into our grandchildren’s twilight years, many things must happen.  We get to talking about strategy.  Our strategy is to reach out to farmers whose land is the green frontier of rainforest deforestation.  People trying to make a living – that is the the most prevalent battleground for conservation and destruction of the world’s forests. 

We connect with farmers and plant trees together. We halt the advance of deforestation and we help bring permanent, economically productive, ecologically restorative agro-forestry systems to fruition, literally.  We let trees do what trees do best – provide for people.

We practice regeneration, and regeneration means: to reap the abundant benefits from giving nature just a little push in the direction it wants to go anyway.  

That all sounds good, but what’s your story? 

Not long ago we loaded a boat with plants and our whole team and visited a neighbor who had approached Camino Verde about implementing a reforestation area on his farm. More than a year after our initial conversation, Fredy Ortega had planted a hectare on his land, and a varied and significant planting it was. 

Side by side went in the rows of dozens of superfood crop trees such as açaí and cacao.  Large timber trees including balsam of Peru and Camphor Moena were interplanted with vitamin C-rich camu camu and nitrogen fixing legumes.  Working in concert, these trees possess the anatomy and physiology of a forest not unlike the wild, primary forest found just a stone’s throw away from Fredy’s farm. 

This is what we do. We can do it thanks to you.  Help us make tomorrow’s Bonus Day on GlobalGiving our best ever. You can donate at this link tomorrow, Wednesday, starting at 9:00 am EST.

All the best from the Amazon of Peru,

Robin