Plant 30,000 native trees Costa Rican owned farms

Listening to the farmers and workers we collaborate with in our projects is crtitical to success. Sometimes we disagree and this gives us a valuable  opportunity to deepen trust while engaging in hands on education. For example, we recently had to address the desire of one farmer to apply herbicide to his land instead of engaging in the chopping work with machete. He believed the trees would grow better if they do not have to struggle with the sometimes aggressive cattle grass that often threatens to choke the trees.

Although we have a standard rule that no herbicides are to be applied to the land, we still had to make a special trip and meet with the farmer to address his concerns and ideas. Ultimately, he realized that he would be giving his job away to the chemical company if he applied herbicide to the land. Plus, we focused on the damage to the soil and surrounding wildlife and water supplies if he applied the herbicide. We brought him studies in Espanol concerning health problems assoicated with excessive herbicide use. 

After many hours of touring the trees and discussions, the farmer agreed to forego the herbicide  application and keep up with chopping the grasses with a crew of workers all being paid a living wage per hour to care for the trees. Victory! 

Success depends on how we communicate. We cannot just deictate the rules with no regard for feedback or community pressures and opinions. When we meet face to face and talk about the solution, we end up changing paradigms in a hands on way over the long term. We also show respect ina real way for our local communities and deepen our relationships of trust. 

Did you know that  Mother Nature provides us with amazing GREEN technology to absorb huge amounts of CO2 while producing O2 for breathing and clean water for drinking and healthy rain cycles? Yes!! Trees planted and grown on the Equator are better than any man made invention so far for environmental services. Equator trees also provide us with amazing food stuffs we all love, plus they feed the animals and regenerate the soils. 

We have been returning this dry season to many mature projects that continue to grow. The CO2 absorption and benefits are maximized every single year the trees keep getting bigger. How rewarding it has been to measure our trees from so many older projects. You may have sponsored a tree in one of these so many years ago.  Just take a look at some 12 and 16 year old forests we have grown together pictured below.

We are so honored and proud to report as well that the past director of the Carbon Nuetral Unit Earth University has been helping us to take tree measurements for applying for third party carbon certification. Our trees are finally big enough to JUSTIFY the massive amount of field and office work required to make carbon cewrtification make sense. We can share the benefits with our Costa Rican family farmers as well and help to generate a circulr economoy that will give back to everyone including the families,the fora and fauna, as well as the organization itself. We can generate more corporate and business style sponsorships with an internationally recognized CO2 certification. It's quite an expensive process, both in terms of time and money to do this carbon measuring  work, but with the partnership of our MENTOR,  this gargantuan task is more  attainable because we will delegate this process to his expert management.

Plus, we are including our community youth in the process, the TREENAGERS, to help with some of the measuring and to work with the field biologists and agro foresters calculating the CO2 and other benefits resulting from the successful long term reforestation.  We like to incorporate some environmental education "citizen science" to benefit the expansion of young minds in a hands on way.

Thank you again for you constant support. Everything we do for the trees and with collaboration of our community is an act of love and dedication and we cannot do it without you and GlobalGiving.