Trees for the Future (TREES) is an American nonprofit group that works on combining trees with farming practices and using land in a way that protects the environment and helps people.
Overview
TREES teaches farmers how to plant trees on their own farms and grow them together with crops in a way that helps the soil get healthier again.
The group says it has helped plant more than 370 million trees with over 40,000 farmers in 50 countries in Latin America, South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia since it started. In June 2021, TREES said it wants to plant one billion trees as part of worldwide efforts to grow more trees, led by the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
Farmers usually stay in the TREES program for 4 years. The goal is to teach farmers how to help the soil get healthier by planting trees, which also helps the environment in many ways. Each tree plot is one acre and has about 2,500 trees. According to TREES, each of these plots helps reduce about 144.64 metric tons of carbon dioxide over 20 years.
History
Trees for the Future, originally named The New Forests Project, was started as a nonprofit organization in 1989 by Dave Deppner.
In June 1993, Trees for the Future was asked to join a group at the White House focused on global climate change. It remained part of this group until 2000.
After Hurricane Mitch hit in November 1998, Trees for the Future began planting trees in Honduras. Later, the organization expanded its work to other countries in Central America. By December 2003, it reported planting 30 million trees worldwide.
On September 10, 2011, Trees for the Future’s Executive Director, Dave Deppner, passed away. He was replaced by John Leary. In 2015, the organization stopped many of its projects globally to focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, beginning work in Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, Cameroon, and Kenya. It also set a new goal: to plant 500 million trees by 2025.
By 2021, Trees for the Future said it had planted 316 million trees worldwide.
In February 2024, Trees for the Future was given the title of UN World Restoration Flagship by the United Nations’ Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.