Planting trees to save the planet!

Olá, dear donors! 

We do hope you are all doing well in these times of change, and holding steady and safe?

Before we go any further we have an important announcement. Giving Tuesday December 1^st is coming soon and we’d love to invite you to join us. This year GlobalGiving has a million dollars in matching funds, so just think how far that will stretch your donation, and how many trees that will help us to plant! Please alert all colleagues, family and friends and let’s make this the best Giving Tuesday ever!

So now for the reforestry news from Iracambi. First, and most importantly, it’s raining really hard, and that’s exactly perfect for planting. Sometimes it interferes with the logistics and makes it hard to get around, but as we told you in one of our recent letters, we’re still singing in the rain, and not grumbling too much!

We’ve now marked out the area for the new Hummingbird Forest. It’s along a river bank and, since the river sometimes floods, we need to select exactly the right species of trees that don’t mind having wet feet, as it were. One of the most important species will be Croton urucurana, commonly known as Dragon’s Blood. This is an amazing tree, whose red sap has highly curative properties for any type of wound, acting as a sort of second skin, a powerful anti-bacterial, and a rapid promoter of healing. We’ve been conducting a longitudinal study with the Federal University in Vicosa on the medicinal properties of this plant, and they’ve been able to prove what every local person round here already knows, it’s the first go-to plant when you have an open wound.

Another couple of species that we’ll plant in the areas that occasionally flood are emba-uba (Cecropia) - a fast growing pioneer species that is traditionally associated with sloths - and Ingá uruguensis which is a nitrogen-fixing tree. And on the higher drier ground, ipê roxo (Tabebuia avellanedai) and pata da vaca, (Bauhinia forficata) both of which have medicinal properties. So Carla, our Living Pharmacy coordinator who runs plant workshops with community members, will be super happy too!

We’ve also been germinating seeds to plant during the next rainy season – we did tell you that reforestry is a year-round job, didn’t we?!

And we couldn’t do any of it without your support, dear donors, so here’s a big rainforest thank you from all of us, especially

Alfredo and Deivid

PS Don’t forget to contact us if you’d like to plant a tree in honor of someone special!

Links:

• Iracambi site

Olá, dear donors! 

We do hope you are all doing well in these times of change, and holding steady and safe? As winter approaches in the northern hemisphere, here in the south we are moving into spring – lots of rain, a wonderful smell of wet earth, birds nesting everywhere and trees coming into leaf.

And our forestry team is hard at work planning this season’s planting. Along with other planting sites, this year we have some exciting news about a brand new forest. It will be part of a forest corridor along a river bank, and we’re calling it the Hummingbird Forest.

Now why did we choose that name?   

Do you remember the story of the hummingbird and the forest fire? The little hummingbird with a drop of water in her beak flying towards the fire just as all the other animals are fleeing as fast as they can? The eagle laughs at her, and tells her she’ll never put out the fire all by herself. And the hummingbird drops the water onto the fire and, looking up at the eagle, she says, “I’ll never put it out all by myself. But I’m doing my part.”  

That indigenous story is what inspires us to get out of bed in the mornings and do our part. And as you know, a lot of what we do is restoring the beautiful rainforest. So, in honor of one our corporate partners and one of our donors, we’re getting ready to plant the Hummingbird Forest, and we’re inviting anyone and everyone who wants to join us to contribute towards planting more and more trees in the new forest.

The Hummingbird Forest will act as a model of forest restoration, a living laboratory for the schoolkids once they are allowed to come back and visit, a research site for students, and a woodland path for visitors. We’ll be documenting its progress, sharing details with you, and sending pictures of the forest site. Deivid and Alfredo are already separating seedlings in the forest nursery, and we’ll get planting just as soon as we can.

So we want to send lots of rainforest love, and thank you so much for supporting us. We can’t wait to share pictures of the Hummingbird Forest!  Look after yourselves and stay safe,

Deivid, Alfredo and the Iracambi Tree Planters  

PS We’ll also be planting a tree in the new forest in memory of one of our Iracambi students. If any of you would like us to plant a tree for someone special, for a new baby, for a birthday present, or in honor of a loved one, please let us know!  

Links:

• our website
• plant a billion trees
• our Facebook page