1. Don’t trees take a long time to grow and produce resources for villagers?
TREE AID’s work is aimed at making long-term, sustainable improvements in quality of life for villagers. Whilst a tree does not produce resources instantly, when it reaches productivity it will continue to provide fruits, leaves, sap, seeds, wood and bark for many years. Most TREE AID projects last 3-5 years, so by the time the project finishes some tree species will begin to be directly productive.
TREE AID also helps villagers to make the most of the more immediate benefits their trees can bring. By helping villagers to protect existing trees, providing them with established tree seedlings (rather than just seeds) and using grafted fruit trees, the benefits will be available sooner as productivity is reached earlier. A grafted mango tree should fruit after 3 years and may still be producing fruit after 100 years.
The land management elements of natural resource management training can increase agricultural yields significantly over as little as one or two years, and work alongside tree planting to ensure that villagers benefit from improved livelihoods long after a project ends.
2. How does TREE AID run its projects?
TREE AID delivers its projects through local partnerships with community-based organisations. The staff of local organisations have a specialised education, often to degree level and beyond, first-hand local knowledge and a community standing that add significant value to the projects that benefit their village communities.
These organisations identify a shared interest with TREE AID, and approach us to discuss a partnership project. TREE AID then conducts a full assessment of the potential project and the capacity of the organisation to manage the project effectively. If the project is viable and fits with our objectives we will shortlist it with a view to securing funding. This approach builds up local organisations through technical and management support, training and funding, and is the most efficient way for us to make the biggest impact.
3. What is TREE AID’s position on carbon offsetting?
TREE AID understands that facilities for carbon offsetting are in increasing demand in developed countries, particularly through tree planting schemes. However, in the drylands of West Africa., landscapes are a mix of wild scrub forest, agricultural fields dotted with trees, community orchards and private woodlots. Small, frequent removals of wood meet the villagers’ daily needs. Calculating the carbon storage of such complex landscapes presents more of a challenge than is often recognised.
Furthermore, trees that are planted or protected through TREE AID’s projects belong to the villagers and communities that plant them, not to TREE AID or our donors. As such, the carbon that is contained in these trees also belongs to the villagers and is not ours to sell in order to raise funds. It is a product that villagers might choose to sell along with the nuts, seeds and fruits of a tree.
As an organisation that works to improve the lives of communities in drylands Africa, TREE AID is only interested in carbon offsetting if the villagers will directly benefit from the income. We are currently looking into the feasibility of acting as a facilitator between donors interested in offsetting their carbon and the villagers who own the trees. We aim to establish a pilot project in Burkina Faso in order to assess whether carbon offsetting is something that TREE AID could offer in the future.
But of course, any tree planted will be capturing carbon, even if there is no official offsetting scheme in place.
4. What proportion of money donated goes towards the projects?
83p of every pound is spent on project work – a high proportion in the charity sector.
Some of this will be spent directly on tree planting, with the rest going towards working with project communities to ensure the survival and best use of their trees. This will involve training in tree management and sustainable use, natural resource management, including for example bush fire management, securing access to the trees and their products, and support in marketing any surplus products.
Like other charities, we will always need to spend a certain amount of money to be able to raise more funds for the work that we do, and to ensure that the work is well-managed. We take very seriously our promise to our supporters and to the villagers in West Africa, working hard to ensure that we deliver best value for the money we raise.
5. To what extent is TREE AID stemming the growth of the Sahara Desert in West Africa?
One of the major causes of desertification is deforestation. By increasing the tree coverage on the land surrounding the communities we work with, TREE AID is directly contributing to reversing the effects of desertification in the Sahel. As well as benefiting from support in planting trees, communities also receive training on sustainable tree management practices such as coppicing, and assisting natural regeneration of tree seedlings. This means that new and existing trees have the best possible chance of survival and the benefits of tree cover are maximised.
Since 1987 TREE AID projects have helped villagers to plant 7.2 million trees in the Sahel. These trees and the benefits they bring mean that communities are able to reclaim the lands they depend upon from the encroaching desert.
We plan to do much more in the future.
6. Do projects ever fail and have to be re-planned or given up?
Since our establishment in 1987 we have delivered a wide variety of projects across many countries. A key component for all of our projects is the lessons which are learnt and the technical and organisational experience they generate. As such all our projects are monitored to make sure that we know:
what is happening on the ground
what impact these interventions are having on families and communities
Monitoring is done every 6 months by TREE AID project staff, and external reviews or evaluations are commissioned regularly. As a result projects may be amended, reflecting changes in needs on the ground.
For TREE AID, our partner NGOs and the communities with whom we work this is a strength and a valuable source of learning. It means that the models that our projects are based upon can be replicated ever more successfully, to the benefit of more communities. Our accumulated experience and knowledge means that we are now working with the national government of Burkina Faso to share our expertise and broaden its impact.
7. What happens to a project community if it is hit by a disaster, such as flooding or drought?
TREE AID’s work aims to increase villagers’ resilience to both environmental and economic shocks, such as flooding or drought.
If one of our project communities is hit by such an occurrence, we would link them to the relevant organisations that can provide emergency relief if needed. So far this has not been necessary.
We would then work find out the types and extent of needs and, where necessary, move to support the villagers in restoring their project.
Our work is based upon the benefits that trees can bring to areas vulnerable to extreme climatic conditions. Trees survive when other crops fail and so provide foods that will support communities through the annual lean months, or through more protracted food shortages. With TREE AID support villagers can
produce more food through improved farming techniques to minimise the risk of food shortage,
preserve and store food effectively.
The income generation elements of our projects enable villagers to earn money from the things that grow on trees. The money earned can act as a back-up fund with which to buy food during times of local shortage.
8. How do the communities fit into the whole project process?
It is an important principle at TREE AID that our strategy is driven by communities’ needs. Partner organisations participate in TREE AID strategy workshops, representing villagers’ key problems and priorities. They then seek feedback from villagers on the outcomes of these workshops, which is in turn be fed-back to TREE AID. These responses significantly influence our funding strategy. The challenge for us to is to how to achieve the greatest potential for their ideas.
For individual project development, a series of discussions, using methods that ensure the widest participation and input from the whole community, are used to determine problems and identify ways to overcome them.
TREE AID input is added during the application process, where we will be in dialogue with the community through the partner organisations representing them. This is how an individual project is designed.
Community input is vital to project reporting, evaluation and lesson learning, and participation is an ongoing process.
9. How do you decide which countries to work in?
TREE AID currently works in four countries. We believe in delivering quality projects that make a real, lasting difference to the lives of villagers in drylands Africa. This means we constantly monitor ourselves so as not to over-stretch ourselves either geographically or operationally.
We focus our assistance in areas where the need is great and where we are able to make the maximum impact. We have the most technical experience in the drylands of Sahelian Africa, and our field office in Ouagadougou allows us to access project sites easily throughout Burkina Faso, in the south of Mali and the north of Ghana in order to provide direct project management support.
On the basis of the considerable expertise we have developed over almost 25 years, we are planning to expand to other areas in the future.
10. Is it possible for men and women from different countries to train together and swap ideas?
TREE AID promotes and facilitates farmer-to-farmer exchanges, giving community representatives the opportunity to visit other project sites to learn about different approaches and techniques, share best practice, and gain first hand experience of the benefits. These projects might be a considerable distance from one another, and occasionally can be in another country. On returning to their communities, these villagers can share their new knowledge and skills more widely and inspire their neighbours to make the best of their trees. Both men and women participate in these exchanges.
11. Do you ever draw on the expertise and experience of groups in other countries, such as the organic growing schemes in Cuba?
TREE AID is committed to ensuing that we deliver the most effective results for our beneficiaries. This means that staying in touch with the latest developments, successes and failures of groups working in similar circumstances around the world is important in maintaining our excellent track record.
TREE AID is a member of a number of ‘learning’ networks including the African Smallholder Farmers Group (ASFG), the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Agriculture & Food in Development, the British Overseas NGOs in Development (BOND) Development & Environment Group, and the AfricaAdapt on-line network.
12. What does TREE AID do to tackle population growth issues in Africa?
TREE AID provides communities living in such extreme poverty with the skills and knowledge that enables them to improve their lives. With growing populations traditional approaches to land and resources management are often no longer effective, leading to environmental degradation and harsher living conditions. We support villagers in learning new resource management techniques that enable them to secure basic needs such as food security.
By respecting and encouraging the participation of all members of the community our work empowers villagers to take responsibility for their future. Women in particular, as managers of the household, are key project participants and gain skills, self respect and a more independent role within the family.
As a forestry based development organisation we are unable to address population issues directly. We are a specialised organisation playing our role, alongside many other specialised organisations, in addressing the many and complex issues that are present in drylands Africa today.
13. Does TREE AID plant non-indigenous species of trees?
Our work is driven by the needs of the community, and they choose the number and type of trees that they wish to plant. They may choose some non-indigenous species because they are fast growing, for example the eucalyptus, which provides wood for building etc., so our projects generally work with a diversity of species.
However the majority of trees planted would be indigenous species which produce a multitude of products used by local people and have evolved to survive the harsh environment where we work.
Both TREE AID and our project partners have a number of highly experienced foresters on their staff, who can advise on the benefits and potential risks associated with different trees, and would advise on how to avoid problems with invasive species.
We also advise against monocultures as part of our natural resources management training, to maximise resilience to shocks from climate, pests and disease.
14. Can you provide any guidance or advice to someone who is thinking of planting trees in this country?
Trees can bring just as many benefits to ecosystems, diets and quality of life in this country as they do in Africa.
TREE AID’s area of expertise is in trees which grow in Africa’s drylands, so we are unable to provide advice for tree planting in other climates.
However, we do have a partnership with Blackmoor nurseries, a leading specialist mail order fruit tree nursery in the UK that can provide information about tree planting. They will also make a donation to TREE AID for every tree they sell!
