Trees for the Future

Many people in developing countries live on severely degraded land. These land conditions directly affect their living standards: it is very difficult to grow food, collect firewood, or make a living off the land. Degraded land also contributes to global warming — when trees are gone, they can no longer remove the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Trees for the Future (TREES) is a grassroots program that helps people living on degraded land to improve their lives through environmentally sound development projects. Through our network of technicians, volunteers, and community leaders, we provide technical knowledge on agroforestry, reforestation, and sustainable development, along with planting materials. We help communities return their land to sustainable production.

TREES has worked with more than 300,000 families in nearly 12,000 communities in Africa and elsewhere. These families have planted over 60 million trees, restoring 87,000 acres of degraded land to sustainable high productivity.

In Senegal, for example, we are training farmers in agroforestry, fruit tree production, reforestation, and vegetable production. Families are seeing how agroforestry can revolutionize the way they collect firewood, fertilize their soil, feed their animals, and expand their lucrative vegetable gardens. What began as an effort to promote one agroforestry technique in one community has evolved into a district-wide, integrated agroforestry training program. We are currently training 80 families in 20 communities, and have planted over 750,000 trees through the program.