Climate Action El Salvador Project #51571

This machete grows trees!

by Paso Pacifico

Summary

In Central America, farmers use machetes to plant "living fences" and assist forest regrowth. Yet, information about such techniques is hard to find. Today, you can fund the pilot project that will gather this information, design easy instructions and pilot this program to 1000 farmers so they can grow 20,000 trees. After piloting, this program can then be refined and scale across the tropics, leading to hundreds of millions of new trees that help save our planet. Donate for our planet today!

$15,000
total goal

$11,575
remaining

38
donors

0
monthly donors

8
fundraisers

3
years

Challenge

Climate change threatens life on this planet. Though carbon finance programs aim to rapidly store carbon through growing trees, rural farmers are often excluded from their highly technical methods and top-down financing structures. These farmers often have unique knowledge and experience managing and cultivating forests by using their machetes to assist natural regeneration. Given the climate emergency, we need solutions that are inclusive and that can bring benefits to local livelihoods.

Solution

This project will gather expertise from small-scale rural farmers on the use of machetes to assist natural regeneration by removing vines, grasses and lianas from naturally growing trees. The program will also bring in farmer knowledge and technical resources on management cuttings from sprouts and stems to plant and grow trees quickly. These materials will be compiled and edited as an illustrated training manual. We will pilot this manual with 1000 farmers, helping them plant 20,000 trees.

Long-Term Impact

The training manual and work with 1000 farmers across Central America will lay the groundwork to scale up this approach to reach one million farmers in the region. As farmers are empowered to use their knowledge and tools to plant trees and grow small forests, they can reap the multiple benefits including food, timber, and ecosystem services. If 1 million farmers were to plant 3 trees each, we could store 1 million tonnes of carbon and elevate the role of the farmers as climate heroes.