Keep Root to Fruit Planting Trees in Malawi
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Root to Fruit Emergency Donations
Short on time and need the brief version? (If you want to know more, you can continue reading below)
Root to Fruit is an environmental social enterprise that facilitates carbon offsetting through community-based tree planting.
We are looking to raise £5000 emergency funding to help keep the enterprise running into 2021 due to the impact of Covid-19 coupled with the tragic loss of a co-founder. This money will go to ensuring that our team stay in employment, running the three tree nurseries to continue raising and planting trees with the local communities and providing environmental education to the many thousands of people that the project reaches.
You can give here via our crowdfund page by clicking ‘donate’ below, or by purchasing a group of trees here . It costs about £40 to offset the average person’s carbon footprint.
Watch our video to find out more about Root to Fruit
As many of you will know, I spent much of the last year volunteering with a project called Root to Fruit in Malawi. Root to Fruit is a fantastic environmental social enterprise that facilitates carbon offsetting through community-based tree planting.
When I first arrived in Malawi, I didn’t know much about trees or carbon offsetting. But things soon changed when I met an incredibly inspiring man called Master Banda, a co-founder of Root to Fruit. I quickly realised that his passion for building up communities and improving the environment in Malawi was at the core of the project.
He was a passionate, energetic teacher and he taught me everything I now know about trees, as well as the importance of engaging with and educating the community to the success of the project. Sadly, I had to return to the UK early from Malawi due to Covid-19, and during the summer I received the devastating news that Master Banda had been tragically killed in a motorbike crash whilst out working for Root to Fruit.
I have set up this crowdfunding page, to help Root to Fruit survive through an incredibly challenging year. Not only have we lost Master Banda, a pillar of the community and integral to Root to Fruit but we have also lost the normal travel-related funding from tourists offsetting the carbon footprint of their trips.
Root to Fruit is an incredible and sustainable project that really makes a difference to thousands of people, both through the trees it grows and through community outreach. I am determined to make sure that Master Banda’s vision lives on well into the future with all of his planted trees.
Your donation would be so gratefully received and will be invaluable to keep the project going through the purchase of planted trees that truly make a difference. We are determined to keep our Root to Fruit staff employed and the project running well into the future, which will only be possible if we can raise funds to see us through the coming months.
More Information?
What is the project?
Root to Fruit is a community-based project on the lakeshore of Malawi, which was set up to combat the devastating deforestation – the country has lost nearly 50% of its forest cover in the last 35 years.
Since Root to Fruit began planting in 2014, we have planted over 300,000 trees with our communities and achieved the target survival rate of over 70%.
Root to Fruit’s broad goals are to:
· plant trees to offset individuals and businesses CO2 emissions;
· reforest Malawi sustainably; and
· benefit the communities where the trees are planted.
In order to achieve this, Root to Fruit operates out of three nurseries with 16 full-time staff members of nursery foremen and assistants. This is where Root to Fruit’s seedlings are grown, planted and cared for before they are distributed to one of Root to Fruit’s 3000 Tree Club sites.
The Tree Club sites are owned by the community themselves, so that they can look after and benefit from the trees in their daily lives. We distribute indigenous tree species that have a purpose and a benefit to our communities. For example, nutrient enriching species to improve soil structure and boost crop yields, species to prevent soil erosion (especially on hillsides), species to level the water table, species for the provision of shade, timber, fruit or medicinal qualities.
Educating the community about these benefits make them value and care for the trees for the long term.
Each site is either a family homestead, a school or a church, which means that the trees benefits extend to many more thousands of people. This enables Root to Fruit to have a platform for direct environmental education, provision of direct and detailed advice to the Tree Club members about their growing trees and importantly, the ability to count the surviving trees, which means we can effectively monitor our survival rate in our electronic database.
Each member of the Root to Fruit team has a catchment area of Tree Club sites and they monitor these sites four times each year. The planted trees are recorded in an electronic database, with each Tree Club’s GPS coordinates recorded.
This sets Root to Fruit apart from some other carbon offset initiatives, which often plant vast amounts of trees without an effective monitoring programme to record tree survival rates. Furthermore, often these large sites are not populated, so that whilst the trees benefit the environment they do not necessarily benefit the local people.
Carbon Offsetting
In addition to the community benefits of Root to Fruit’s work, the trees are planted as carbon offsets. Trees suck carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and reverse global warming, they are natural air purifiers and release clean oxygen for us to breathe. Root to Fruit offers individuals and businesses the opportunity to become carbon neutral in their daily life, travel adventures or business ventures.
The trees that you purchase are already planted, which means that our promise to our customers to offset their carbon footprint is already realised in the ground, rather than the promise to plant a tree in the future. When you buy trees you not only reduce your carbon footprint and help the environment, you also make a difference to the lives of our Root to Fruit community.
Why should I buy trees?
We all have a carbon footprint, some bigger than others. As an example, the average person in the UK emits 5.81 tonnes CO2 per year, which requires 30 trees planted to offset the carbon.
You can buy trees directly at Root to Fruit by clicking the OFFSET NOW button or alternatively you can donate to a project that truly is making a difference to the lives of Malawians and to the environment that we live in.
Short on time and need the brief version? (If you want to know more, you can continue reading below)
Root to Fruit is an environmental social enterprise that facilitates carbon offsetting through community-based tree planting.
We are looking to raise £5000 emergency funding to help keep the enterprise running into 2021 due to the impact of Covid-19 coupled with the tragic loss of a co-founder. This money will go to ensuring that our team stay in employment, running the three tree nurseries to continue raising and planting trees with the local communities and providing environmental education to the many thousands of people that the project reaches.
You can give here via our crowdfund page by clicking ‘donate’ below, or by purchasing a group of trees here . It costs about £40 to offset the average person’s carbon footprint.
Watch our video to find out more about Root to Fruit
As many of you will know, I spent much of the last year volunteering with a project called Root to Fruit in Malawi. Root to Fruit is a fantastic environmental social enterprise that facilitates carbon offsetting through community-based tree planting.
When I first arrived in Malawi, I didn’t know much about trees or carbon offsetting. But things soon changed when I met an incredibly inspiring man called Master Banda, a co-founder of Root to Fruit. I quickly realised that his passion for building up communities and improving the environment in Malawi was at the core of the project.
He was a passionate, energetic teacher and he taught me everything I now know about trees, as well as the importance of engaging with and educating the community to the success of the project. Sadly, I had to return to the UK early from Malawi due to Covid-19, and during the summer I received the devastating news that Master Banda had been tragically killed in a motorbike crash whilst out working for Root to Fruit.
I have set up this crowdfunding page, to help Root to Fruit survive through an incredibly challenging year. Not only have we lost Master Banda, a pillar of the community and integral to Root to Fruit but we have also lost the normal travel-related funding from tourists offsetting the carbon footprint of their trips.
Root to Fruit is an incredible and sustainable project that really makes a difference to thousands of people, both through the trees it grows and through community outreach. I am determined to make sure that Master Banda’s vision lives on well into the future with all of his planted trees.
Your donation would be so gratefully received and will be invaluable to keep the project going through the purchase of planted trees that truly make a difference. We are determined to keep our Root to Fruit staff employed and the project running well into the future, which will only be possible if we can raise funds to see us through the coming months.
More Information?
What is the project?
Root to Fruit is a community-based project on the lakeshore of Malawi, which was set up to combat the devastating deforestation – the country has lost nearly 50% of its forest cover in the last 35 years.
Since Root to Fruit began planting in 2014, we have planted over 300,000 trees with our communities and achieved the target survival rate of over 70%.
Root to Fruit’s broad goals are to:
· plant trees to offset individuals and businesses CO2 emissions;
· reforest Malawi sustainably; and
· benefit the communities where the trees are planted.
In order to achieve this, Root to Fruit operates out of three nurseries with 16 full-time staff members of nursery foremen and assistants. This is where Root to Fruit’s seedlings are grown, planted and cared for before they are distributed to one of Root to Fruit’s 3000 Tree Club sites.
The Tree Club sites are owned by the community themselves, so that they can look after and benefit from the trees in their daily lives. We distribute indigenous tree species that have a purpose and a benefit to our communities. For example, nutrient enriching species to improve soil structure and boost crop yields, species to prevent soil erosion (especially on hillsides), species to level the water table, species for the provision of shade, timber, fruit or medicinal qualities.
Educating the community about these benefits make them value and care for the trees for the long term.
Each site is either a family homestead, a school or a church, which means that the trees benefits extend to many more thousands of people. This enables Root to Fruit to have a platform for direct environmental education, provision of direct and detailed advice to the Tree Club members about their growing trees and importantly, the ability to count the surviving trees, which means we can effectively monitor our survival rate in our electronic database.
Each member of the Root to Fruit team has a catchment area of Tree Club sites and they monitor these sites four times each year. The planted trees are recorded in an electronic database, with each Tree Club’s GPS coordinates recorded.
This sets Root to Fruit apart from some other carbon offset initiatives, which often plant vast amounts of trees without an effective monitoring programme to record tree survival rates. Furthermore, often these large sites are not populated, so that whilst the trees benefit the environment they do not necessarily benefit the local people.
Carbon Offsetting
In addition to the community benefits of Root to Fruit’s work, the trees are planted as carbon offsets. Trees suck carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and reverse global warming, they are natural air purifiers and release clean oxygen for us to breathe. Root to Fruit offers individuals and businesses the opportunity to become carbon neutral in their daily life, travel adventures or business ventures.
The trees that you purchase are already planted, which means that our promise to our customers to offset their carbon footprint is already realised in the ground, rather than the promise to plant a tree in the future. When you buy trees you not only reduce your carbon footprint and help the environment, you also make a difference to the lives of our Root to Fruit community.
Why should I buy trees?
We all have a carbon footprint, some bigger than others. As an example, the average person in the UK emits 5.81 tonnes CO2 per year, which requires 30 trees planted to offset the carbon.
You can buy trees directly at Root to Fruit by clicking the OFFSET NOW button or alternatively you can donate to a project that truly is making a difference to the lives of Malawians and to the environment that we live in.
Organizer
Poppy Wilcox
Organizer