Contributing Farmland Restoration to United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration
Agroforestry training nonprofit Trees for the Future (TREES) is on track to plant one billion trees with farmers by 2030. To date, TREES has worked with farmers to plant 268+ million trees and restore more than 60,000 acres of farmland.
“Farmers and sustainable land use practices are the key to lasting landscape and ecosystem restoration,” says TREES Director of Programs Brandy Lellou. “We are not just planting one billion trees; we’re addressing the root cause of the environmental and climate crises – unsustainable land use.”
The one billion trees are being planted by farmers in regenerative agroforestry systems called Forest Gardens. TREES staff and partners are actively training farmers in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Senegal, and the Gambia. Farmers learn to establish and maintain a Forest Garden on their own land, effectively repairing and protecting their land while growing more food to eat and sell.
“When we give farmers the tools and knowledge they need to thrive on their land, we see landscapes and entire ecosystems come back to life,” says Lellou.
TREES is an official implementing partner of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, a global effort to spur global restoration efforts from 2021 to 2030. TREES will focus on farmland restoration, aiming to restore degraded soils, increase tree cover, support biodiversity, capture carbon, and increase both food access and income security through agroforestry and sustainable tree planting.
TREES will continue scaling up over the next decade through their training program, collaborative partnerships, and through their growing network of farmers and agroforestry experts. Find more information on their 2030 one billion tree goal.