Protection and expansion of Intact Forest Landscapes
Restoration and protection of watersheds
Controlling soil erosion (as extreme weather and deforestation cause run off)
Restoring topsoil and land fertility
Improving community livelihoods and forest interdependence
(Note - the terms 'tree strategy' and 'reforestation strategy' include, from a technical perspective, the broader activities of forest restoration, afforestation and re-greening of drylands.)
We focus primarily on regions where urgent forest restoration or conservation can reduce or help prevent further damage to the last frontiers of our remaining Intact Forests Landscapes. These remaining ancient forests are invaluable sanctuaries, with an amazing complexity of Life (biodiversity and ecological processes).
We work to restore degraded forests with a broader goal in mind, such as creating corridors connecting protected areas and/or intact forests landscapes.
We consider afforestation (tree planting in areas that have never been forested) where serious soil and land degradation compounded by water scarcity severely impact life and threaten nearby ecosystems. Planting where survival rates are high, where it increases resilience to climate change and brings significant ecological and social benefit (without negative impacts) can be both possible and desirable.
We look for countries that are the lowest performers on IUCN's gender and environment index (meaning the worst treatment of women).
Intact Forest Landscapes cover less than 10% of the Earth's total land area and consist of humid tropical forests, and boreal forests in the Northern and Southern latitudes. They exist in 66 countries, with two-thirds of these forests concentrated in just 3 countries: Brazil, Russia and Canada.
Using a variety of data sources, we narrowed down the forest regions suffering from the highest rates of deforestation, and which presented the highest potential for landscape restoration in their immediate vicinity. These are the countries, highlighted in dark and light green on the map.
(See bottom of the page for data sources).
There are innovative and creative reforestation projects looking to simultaneously support multiple levels of human and ecological healing. We seek to partner with exemplary initiatives that fit our reforestation strategy.
To achieve the environmental goals set in our reforestation strategy, we pay particular attention to the following projects:
Forest restoration in the vicinity of Intact Forest Landscapes or protected areas (green belt, buffer zones, forest corridors within fragmented forest ecosystems), in Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, Tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests, Tropical and subtropical coniferous forests, as well as Mangroves.
Conservation of Intact Forest Landscapes (types as above).
Emergency tree planting (when appropriate) and/or re-greening with assisted natural regeneration, restoring productivity by adding trees (agro-forestry, tree planting on farms, framework planting), in Tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests, Tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas and shrublands and deserts and xeric shrublands ecoregions, that are at risks of deforestation, land degradation and desertification.
To achieve the socio-economic goals set in our strategy, we are particularly interested in projects that...
We start by asking whether the project aligns with our overall strategy: Is it a reforestation or forest conservation project emphasising restoring degraded soil and maintaining watersheds? Does it involve the local community and empower women? Does it lie within the countries we have identified as priorities?
What type of trees are they planting and why (are they native species)? How do they take care of them until maturity? What are the survival rates of these trees? Whose land are they planted upon?
Here we want to ensure that the organization is sustainable, well-managed and has an absolutely clean track record. We look at their finances, budget, and audited accounts. We ask questions about staffing, monitoring and evaluation. We also look at the "price per tree" to understand what is included.
When the organization has matched our requirements, we sign a memorandum of understanding and start sending them TreeSisters contributions every quarter.
The cost per tree varies between different reforestation projects and is the total project cost divided by the number of planted/ regenerated trees. Different projects have different costs due to many factors, such as:
The species being planted and levels of care needed to germinate and grow it.
Whether volunteers or paid employees are growing, planting and protecting the trees.
Country cost of living and therefore costs of all planting materials and wages.
Whether the land is to be planted needs significant preparation.
Survival of the saplings if threatened by flood, drought, disease and replanting costs.
Additional installations like drip irrigation infrastructure to ensure survival.
Protection, monitoring and evaluation costs and complexity.
Training programs.
Health and education programs are often combined with tree planting.
Issues of land ownership and governance, such as securing the rights of the land.
- We choose our projects based on our strategy and due diligence process, not the cost of planting a tree.
- We strive to plant as many trees as possible, but also recognize the need to support a wide variety of projects, with their ensuing variety of costs, to have as great an impact as possible in as many ecosystems as we can.
IMAGE CREDIT: PROJECT GREENHANDS
Mapping the World's Intact Forest Landscapes by Remote Sensing. Potapov P., et al. Ecology and Society, 13. 2008. http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol13/iss2/art51/
FAO's Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005 http://www.fao.org/forestry/fra/fra2005/en/
Peter Potapov, Lars Laestadius, and Susan Minnemeyer. Global Map of Forest Landscape Restoration Opportunities. World Resources Institute: Washington, DC. 2008. www.wri.org/forest-restoration-atlas
IUCN's Gender and Environment Index. http://environmentgenderindex.org/
Biodiversity Hotspots for Conservation Priorities, N. Myers et al. Nature 403, 853-858, 24 February 2000. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v403/n6772/full/403853a0.html