ACTIVITIES
‘Plant and Protect’
My Trees focuses on four main activities: restoration, conservation, education, and provision of alternative technologies.
Each of these activities begins with the building of strong relationships within communities, and we work closely with rural district councils, traditional leadership, schools, and government entities such as the Environmental Management Agency, Forestry Commission, and Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority.
RESTORATION:
OUR TREE PLANTING PROGRAMS
My Trees only plants indigenous tree species. Growing the right trees in the right places not only ensures better survival and growth rates, since these species are adapted to local conditions and environs, but they also help restore and protect vital biodiversity markers in our areas of operation.
My Trees contracts rural farmers with available land to plant trees. Each farmer is paid for three years to look after a hectare of trees, and we aim to plant between 400 and 500 trees per hectare. After the first three years, the tree is well established and should survive without further intervention. This model incentivizes farmers to look after the trees we plant with them as they become part of the expanding My Trees family, and gives their trees an immediate monetary value.
CONSERVATION:
While our tree planting work is a fundamental part of My Trees’s work, we also appreciate that there is a vital need to protect intact forests and woodlands.
Maintenance of wilderness and biodiversity at scale is a driving ambition of My Trees. To this end, My Trees has the management lease to two large wildlife areas, Gache-Gache and Charara South, which are situated within the Kariba region of the Zambezi Valley. Progress has been rapid over the last 12 months as we have expanded our capacity to deliver meaningful rehabilitation to the 120,000 hectares of these holdings. These areas represent an important part of the wider 2-million-hectare lower Zambezi protected area and we are continually reminded that we play an important role in a bigger story of habitat connectivity.
Wildlife within these concessions will require time to fully recover from poaching and illegal hunting, however we have already seen encouraging signs of improvement. Our in-field teams are recording increased species diversity and abundance, which shows that our efforts are starting to reap rewards.
ALTERNATIVE TECHNOLOGIES:
Most of the deforestation in Zimbabwe can be attributed to wood-fuel being cut for domestic use. Improving cooking efficiency is therefore a priority, with fuel-reducing stoves being an effective, measurable way to tackle this aspect of deforestation.
My Trees has distributed 118,000 fuel efficient stoves in Hurungwe and Honde Valley. The metal woodstove we distribute has been independently assessed to verify that it uses 70% less wood than a traditional three stone fire. It has been the stove of choice for similar projects in Kenya and Zambia. Our aim is for all My Trees growers to receive one of these stoves. In terms of reduced wood consumption, the project is expected to save roughly 160,000 hectares of woodland over its five-year term.
EDUCATION:
As the impacts of climate change grow in Zimbabwe, creating a platform for discussions on sustainability and resilience, planting trees, seed collection, and environmental and biodiversity protection is becoming increasingly important.
My Trees Trust has developed a 5-day workshop curriculum on these topics, which places rural communities’ lived experiences and knowledge-exchange at the forefront through culturally and contextually responsive participatory and action learning activities.
Our “Community-Based Environmental Protection and Social Cohesion Workshops” aim to mobilize rural communities to work collectively to protect their environment, increase their climate change adaptation capacity, and plant trees. Our aim is for every contracted grower to receive this training, as well as learn conservation farming techniques to use land more productively.