Trees For The Future

Mission

Since 1989, Trees for the Future has been helping communities around the world plant trees. Through seed distribution, agroforestry training, and their in-country programs, they have empowered rural groups to restore tree cover to their lands. Planting trees protects the environment and helps to preserve traditional livelihoods and cultures for generations.

Programs

This non-profit organization assists people in developing countries improve their rural livelihoods through the introduction of environmentally sustainable land management projects focused on beneficial tree planting.   Most communities around the world recognize that they need to plant trees on their degraded lands if they are to improve their lives. They provide technical knowledge on agroforestry and sustainable development, along with planting materials so that communities can return their degraded lands and struggling farms back to sustainable production.   Beneficial trees minimize soil erosion, supply forage for animals, and provide a source of fuelwood, but planting trees is difficult when the canopy has disappeared, topsoil has been eroded, and the climate and growing conditions have changed. Through their network of technicians, volunteers, and community leaders world-wide, their program reaches remote areas and gives local people the knowledge and ability to rehabilitate their environment.   Since 1988, Trees for the Future has helped thousands of communities in Central America, Africa, and Asia improve their livelihoods and their environment by planting nearly 65 million trees. They calculate that these trees remove over one and a half million tons of CO₂ from the atmosphere each year.   They are also active locally, educating students and communities about global issues, our role in the environment, and energy efficiency.

The staff of Trees for the Future are solution-oriented people. They have developed programs that work for restoring trees and forests to degraded lands. They are engaged in showing communities how to utilize renewable energy sources, and they pride themselves on being leaders in the world for positive change.   They provide a hands-on people-to-people program at the grassroots level, and are leading by example.

Why Planting Trees Increases Energy Sustainability

Through photosynthesis, trees and other plants take in carbon dioxide and replace it with oxygen. Restoring tree cover to barren lands,  is a very cost-effective way to continuously remove carbon dioxide (a major "greenhouse gas") from the global atmosphere. And when Trees for the Future starts such projects in the developing countries of the humid tropics, they can plant about five times as many trees and remove about 15 times as much carbon for the same cost.
 
Trees for the Future employs straightforward global cooling remedies that work. They keep it simple: If there is too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, there are two choices:

1)  Stop putting more carbon dioxide into the air, and
       
2)  If you do put CO₂ into the air, absorb it and store it.
 
Trees for the Future's Global Cooling Action Center focuses on the second item, and has a three-step action plan for reducing human impact on the atmosphere:
 
1)  To encourage people around the world to use fossil fuels more efficiently, and even more important, to switch to renewable energy sources.
       
2)  To protect old-growth trees and rainforests as “warehouses for carbon” and to harvest existing forests in a sustainable manner.
     
3)  To plant trees in the tropics to offset the carbon dioxide that we produce.
       
In simple terms, reduce what you can, and absorb the rest by planting trees in tropical locations.

As an consulting company also promoting greater energy efficiency for homeowners, our company fully supports Trees for the Future's programs. In doing so, the Certified Ecologists and Energy Auditors at Therma-Check, LLC can evaluate your house and property to document the energy consumption, environmental impacts and carbon output, and then determine how much of your carbon emission is currently being replaced by the sustainable features of your home and property, and we offer steps you can take to compensate for excess emissions. We will be able to compute, for example, how many trees of what varieties and locations on your site you should plant to meet your energy balance goals. Furthermore, where this is undesirable or infeasible we can advise you as to how many trees you might consider planting by proxy through tax-deductible donations to Trees for the Future. In this way homeowners can be responsible for planting sufficient trees to compensate for their own energy usage, and more as desired. The costs of these tree planting programs through Trees for the Future are very affordable, yet effective in improving degraded soils and the quality of life for many communities.

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