Trees Journal 2015
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September 2015 £3.50 ➺VOLUME 72 INTERNATIONALTREEFOUNDATION.ORG FREETO ITF SUPPORTERS JOURNAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL TREE FOUNDATION BRINGING ELM NEW HOPE FOR UGANDA’S TREES BACK TO DISPLACED RURAL BRITAIN PEOPLE TREE POWER INSPIRING YOUNG PEOPLE ALBERTA’SDIRTY TAR OIL: SANDS WOMEN LEAD UN’S BLUEPRINT FOR WAY TO A A BETTER WORLD BETTER FUTURE Will it work? in Mali 20 MILLION TREES FOR KENYA’S FORESTS CONTENTS A VOICE FOR TREES PATRON His Royal Highness the This 2015 issue of the Trees IN THIS ISSUE Prince of Wales journal comes at a time of ever FOUNDER 5 20M TREES Dr Richard St Barbe more accurate information It is ITF’s most ambitious and Baker OBE on the state of planet Earth’s exciting initiative ever. To mark PRESIDENT Professor Sir Ghillean forests. Both the number of our centenary we are planning Prance trees and the rate at which they to plant 20m trees in Kenya’s VICE PRESIDENTS are being lost. forests. Professor Julian Evans Edward Green MBE The Earth currently has 3 8 ELM TREE REVIVAL Susan Hampshire trillion trees. A lot. But nearly Can elm trees be brought back The Earl of Lindsay half have been lost since human William E Matthews OBE to the British Countryside? beings started cutting down CHAIR With ITF’s support, elm Timothy Hornsby forests. The rate of deforestation saplings taken from disease- VICE CHAIR is starting to fall, with natural Professor Roger Leakey free, mature trees are being TRUSTEES forest loss falling from 8.5m David Gore planted in Sussex. Maria Grecna hectares per year in the 1990s Jamie Holloway to 6.6m this century. But we are 10 CYCADS Mardi McBrien still losing trees at the net rate of They were a favourite food for Philip Tamuno Bland Tomkinson 10 billion per year and the rate the dinosaurs but now they are CHIEF EXECUTIVE of deforestation in the tropics is under threat. A new initiative to Andy Egan increasing. Andy Egan, ITF Chief Executive conserve an ancient group of EDITOR Richard Sadler This is leading to an array plants known as cycads. DESIGN of disastrous consequences for life on Earth: biodiversity and species Rather Fine Design loss, soil infertility, land degradation, reduced water catchments and 12 DIRTY OIL PRINT The world’s major oil Newman Thomson desertification – while also contributing to climate change. The stark companies are scrambling to International image on the front cover is a graphic illustration of how our current exploit Alberta’s tar sands. Tree Foundation economic system rewards the destruction of the natural environment. Mayfield House The damage to boreal 256 Banbury Road As our founder Richard ‘St Barbe’ Baker put it so graphically “If a man forests, wildlife and people is Oxford OX2 7DE loses one-third of his skin he dies; if a tree loses one-third of its bark, it too Telephone: incalculable. 01865 318836 dies. If the Earth is a ‘sentient being’, would it not be reasonable to expect Email: that if it loses one-third of its trees and vegetable covering, it will also die?” 15 NEW HOPE FOR UGANDA info@international treefoundation.org It is encouraging therefore to see greater recognition of the critical The inspiring story of a youth- www.international relationship between trees and forests and human well-being by led movement that is helping treefoundation.org governments of the world. Firstly the new Sustainable Development Goals people rebuild their lives in Registered Charity number 1106269 are being agreed this month at a UN summit in New York. And then in once war-ravaged Uganda. Like us on Facebook December a key UN climate summit will take place in Paris – COP21 - with International Tree the aim of finally agreeing effective action on climate change. 17 TREES 4 LIVELIHOODS Foundation A pioneering initiative by ITF This issue of Trees therefore considers some of the critical issues Follow us on Twitter partner Sahel Eco to improve @ITF_Worldwide and key questions. Will this recognition lead to effective action to end women’s lives in rural Mali is deforestation and support for large-scale reforestation and afforestation? Trees is published already yielding results. by International Tree Will the communities that depend on and care for the world’s natural forests Foundation (ITF), a be given the rights and resources to enable them to manage the natural registered charity (no. 20 SUSTAINABLE 1106269). The opinions environment sustainably? Will some of the most destructive extractive DEVELOPMENT GOALS expressed in it do not projects, like the vast tar sands mines in Alberta, Canada, be outlawed? The aim is to unite the worlds’ necessarily reflect ITF policy and ITF does not We also present some of the positive action being taken by communities countries in a common cause hold itself responsible across the world. We hear from two ITF partners in Mali and Uganda on their for a fairer society and truly for any of those vital work with local communities to improve environmental sustainability sustainable forestry policies. opinions. Trees is printed on recycled paper. and people’s livelihoods. And we look at a project in England (with one of But can it really change the way the lowest rates of tree cover in Europe) to restore the elm tree. we do business? This issue’s Contributors PAUL CHANKOMA PROF HUGH PRITCHARD NAOMI HOPE RICHARD SADLER Paul is founder and chief Hugh is a senior research leader Naomi is ITF’s Programme Richard is ITF’s new executive of Friends in comparative seed biology Support Officer. She is studying Communications Officer. of Environment for at the Royal Botanic Gardens, for an MA in International He is a freelance Development (FED) a Kew. He is principal investigator Affairs, specialising in environment journalist dynamic new youth-led of a Darwin Initiative project on project management and and former BBC environment organization in Uganda. cycad biology. development studies. correspondent. Front Page: Open-Pit Mining of Tar Sands. Photo: John Woods/ Greenpeace Sands. Photo: John Woods/ Page: Open-Pit Mining of Tar Front 2 trees September 2015 www.internationaltreefoundation.org A Message From Our President CRUCIAL TIME FOR THE FUTURE OF OUR PLANET I am delighted to write the foreword to this year’s edition of Trees. As your president and a long-term admirer of the work of the International Tree Foundation, I am pleased to see that 2015 is proving to be such a good year for the Foundation. Trees have been my life ever since I studied in the Forestry Department of Oxford University and began to work with tropical trees. There has never been a more important time in the brief history of humankind to be planting trees to remedy the deforestation and environmental change that our species has caused. I have travelled extensively in the Amazon region over the past fifty-two years on thirty-nine botanical expeditions - and so have witnessed the loss of huge areas of tropical rainforest. Consequently the work of any organization that is planting trees is dear to my heart. I am particularly pleased that the ITF is engaged in tree planting in Africa, where trees are desperately needed because the forests have suffered the same fate as those of the Amazon. Consequently local people are suffering from the loss of the trees upon which their livelihood depends. We are approaching a crucial event for the future of our planet, the Conference of the Parties (COP 21) of the Convention on Climate Change that will take place in Paris in December. It is my hope that this will result in definitive action to curb the emission of greenhouse gases. One of the many remedies for reducing climate change will be the restoration of forests and the planting of trees to fix back the carbon from the atmosphere. It is so vital to act on this because not only are we losing trees, but we are also starting to see effects on the world’s remaining intact forests as a result of climate change. As world climate changes and warms, there is increasing evidence of the adverse effect this is having on trees and other organisms. Amazon ecologist Philip Fearnside predicts that much of the Amazon forest is in danger of die-off from the combined effects of drought, heat and fires within the current century. Some of the area would be transformed into savanna or some type of low-biomass woody vegetation, with greatly reduced biodiversity. All this will be the result of climate change if we do not do something to stop it. The very trees that ITF plant could be in danger if we do not address the broader issue of reducing the effects of climate change. This does not mean that we should reduce the work of ITF. We need more trees busy photosynthesising to fix the carbon and to provide for the needs of local peoples. Keep up the good work of ITF and plant as many trees as possible this year. Professor Sir Ghillean Prance FRS, VMH www.internationaltreefoundation.org September 2015 trees 3 ITF NEWS INTRODUCING THE NKHATA BAY NBNW Field officers receiving NATURAL WAY mountain bikes This July ITF and partners TEMWA A total of 3,300 direct beneficiaries finance and institution-building, and and Deki Ltd launched a new four are being selected. They will be chosen share a deep understanding of the year project in Malawi - The Nkhata from large households with eight or more challenges faced by the local community. Bay Natural Way. Set to benefit dependants, orphan-hosting and female- “They have made an excellent start. marginalised groups in 110 villages, headed households, families with a On my visit I met local community the project will improve health and member who is HIV positive, and young members who are already raising nutrition and increase income through people aged 18-35.