The only drawback of working together directly with Trees for the Future is that you don’t know exactly where your trees will be planted except when you are going to fund for a whole project, i.e. donating at least $10.000 per year (read more) for 4 years and we can’t pay that at this moment unfortunately. BUT, during our 5 million tree campaign, we met the founder of Promobutler Foundation. This is a Belgian vzw that encourages other companies to adopt sustainability into their business model and to donate money to plant trees. All the funds they raise will go directly to Trees for the Future. So, Promobutler Foundation acts as an intermediary between us and Trees for the Future which causes more paperwork and 5% extra administrative costs BUT the big advantage here is that they gather much bigger sums of money so that they can donate to a whole project ánd thus are able to track everything extremely well! And we prefer full transparency above everything else. ?

In addition, to offset the fact that working with an American organization might be not 100% transparent for European climate activists, we not only will donate money to them, we even will be joining the new Belgian NPO Promobutler Foundation. This organisation forms a very strong (Belgian) basis to continue all our climate efforts. The joined effort will allow for a much larger scale so that we can do proper follow up on the projects funded by this organisation! Stronger together, right?!

Forest Gardens are also known as polyculture, permaculture, agroforestry, etc… and define a multi-layered, multi-purpose distribution of vegetables, bushes, and lots of trees designed to optimize productivity of a piece of land. It is a farming system that thinks vertically, not just horizontally. Forest gardens stand in stark contrast to modern industrial agriculture which encourages farmers to plant one or few crops. Time and time again, these monocultures contribute to chemical-intensive, environmentally-destructive, and deadly consequences for biodiversity and long-term human prosperity.

Agroforestry (= Forest Gardens) is a model that integrates trees into agriculture, landscapes and is particularly appropriate for resource-poor farmers in developing countries. In addition to providing fruits, berries, and nuts, trees provide environmental services that are essential for the world: they can improve the fertility of degraded soils (through nitrogen fixation), prevent wind and soil erosion (contributing to improved fertility), increase water penetration into underground aquifers, and contribute to improvements in the growing environment. The result is that, apart from all the positive impacts on the climate and ecosystem, farmers earn up to 400% more with the Forest garden approach which banishes hunger, improves educations (especially for the woman!) and remove the need for migration.

Bekijk deze 20 minuten durende documentaire om te leren hoe bomen de woestijn weer groen kunnen maken door regeneratieve landbouw met de Forest Garden aanpak.

So, how does Trees for the Future plants trees for only $0,1? The €0,10 is enough to provide African farmers with the tools, knowledge and seeds to successfully plant their own trees. Because they are not paid for doing this, the cost per tree stays incredibly low. The farmers however get the most out of it. They receive a full 4-year education project which learns them how to engage in regenerative agriculture with the help of the trees. This allows them to increase the fertility of their soil and increase their income up to 400% so that hunger is drastically reduced, there is a great surge in education and woman empowerment and eht need for migration will be drastically reduced.