Good Morning TREES Members and Friends of the Organization,

In the past month we've seen plenty of news about the environment.  The United States administration is discussing climate change with China, the NY Times highlighted the effects of deforestation near Ica, Peru, and the USDA released data on food insecurity in the United States.  We see every day that environmental problems stretch across country boundaries and affect us all in multiple ways.  When the Deppners visited the Philippines, they nearly had to swim through the streets while at the same time farmers in Cameroon try to battle against terrible climactic conditions to ensure their trees' survival.  With Thanksgiving coming soon, we would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your assistance.  Read about what you make possible in the . . .  

Hot News

• News from the Field
  • Unintended Benefits in Brazil
  • Cameroon Update
  • Progress and Adaptation in Ethiopia 
  • Philippine Update
• Introducing Mathius Lukwago 
• Business Partnerships 
• TREES Winter Newsletter and 2010 Plan Ready for Download
• TREES Project Pictures on FLICKR
• TREES is on Skype

India - In November, 15,000 seedlings were planted in Nallavanpalayam, Savalpoondi, Melkachirappattu, Varagur, Meyyur and Nachananthal Villages, and Tamil Nadu

News from the Field
Unintended Benefits in Brazil
In early October Program Officer Jeff Follett and Brazil Field Representative, Fernanda Peixoto, visited project sites and distributed seeds in São Paulo state.  The people they spoke with decided to start planting trees for many reasons.  In one case, a neighbor had lost three crops of cassava due to erosion.  In another case, a farmer could not maintain soil humidity and was continually having to water her crops. In yet another case, a farmer had a nursery destroyed by high winds and lost all of the flowers on her coffee bushes before they could produce fruit.  We continue to address issues such as these in São Paulo state.   By working with five groups - Marília Small Farmers Association, Cooperativa Sul, Oriente Bee Association, Marília Bee Association, and the Guaranta Settlement - we hope to reach hundreds of farmers. We have already distributed over 230,000 seeds to these five groups.  After months of training and preparing nurseries, the farmers are prepared to plant their seeds.  The seeds will grow for approximately 2 ½ months in the nurseries before being transplanted in January.  In each case, the farmer who plants the trees will benefit from reduced wind speeds, reduced erosion, and better production. Please visit our Flickr page to see picture's from Jeff's trip to Brazil.

Cameroon Update
Currently, TREES Cameroon Representative, Louis Nkembi, and his field team are conducting surveys and evaluations of the 2009 program in Cameroon.  They are visiting farmer's fields to see how many trees they planted, what species they used, and what agroforestry technology was employed. They are also collecting GPS points and pictures of each of the projects.  One of the goals for 2009 in Cameroon was for each of the 2,000 participating farmers to plant at least 1,000 trees in their fields and homes.  Most farmers have had great success in their efforts.  However, in other cases, due to unfavorable climatic conditions and sometimes farmer's neglect, many seedlings died.  Therefore, many trees are being replaced with seedlings farmers still have in their nurseries.  By the end of 2009, Louis expects that Trees for the Future will have helped farmers plant 1.5 million trees throughout the Western Highlands Region of Cameroon. 

Progress and Adaptation in Ethiopia
In attempting to meet the need for tree planting in Ethiopia, TREES and Greener Ethiopia have focused primarily on increasing production over the past several years. The program has been very successful to this end. In 2009 however, it became increasingly apparent that essential components of the program, including information sharing between partners and monitoring and reporting of program accomplishments, received decidedly less attention. For this reason, TREES has decided to base Gabriel Buttram in Ethiopia as the country's Program Coordinator. Gabe will work closely with Greener Ethiopia to institute new processes to improve important components of the program, including project design, budgeting, training, monitoring and reporting. He will also be working to extend TREES' assistance even further in 2010, through creating partnerships and synergies with more community groups and organizations throughout the country. In TREES' experience, the decisions to send coordinators Josh Bogart (Honduras) and David Tye (Tanzania) to the field fulltime have been a boon to both programs, and we are confident that Gabe will be as successful in Ethiopia. Be sure to check out the project page on our website periodically to find out how the program is progressing.

Philippine Update
This rainy season was a brutal one in the Philippines, with tropical storms and typhoons hitting most of the Philippines with increased strength and frequency. Dave, Grace, and Francis Deppner visited the Philippines in September and in the four weeks they were there five tropical storms ripped through the country. Each storm brought lots of rain, in addition to winds that took out power and telephone lines which made the relief efforts much more difficult. Our project in Zambales is growing due to land-owners' agreements with the Department of Natural Resources (DENR) which requires them to reforest their land in exchange for land grants. Our partner, TREES/Philippines, has reached many more people with the digital projector and laptop that we provided to assist them in giving presentations to different organizations and schools. We have also developed a partnership with the Ramon Magsaysay Technical University who will assist us in conducting germination tests and also will help us during the planting season. 

The Philippines - Francis Deppner with an 8-month-old Acacia angustissima tree	Brazil - Elsa tells about the early years of living in the Guaranta Settlement	The Philippines - Ipil-Ipil (Leucaena leucocephala) planted amongst various fruit and vegetable species

Introducing Mathius Lukwago
Mathius Lukwago is the Uganda Program Coordinator for Trees for the Future. He joined TREES in May of this year and has proven to be an excellent asset in promoting tree planting and working with local communities throughout Uganda.  Mathius is pleased to be working with TREES because it reinforces his commitment to plant trees and reforest Uganda. Mathius said, "The driving factor to promote tree planting is, what will I say when my children and grandchildren ask me 'What did you do to protect the environment?'" Now with the support of Trees for the Future Mathius can continue working with the love of trees he developed so many years ago growing up in the forests of Central Uganda.


Business Partnerships
Please check out our featured partners this month.

 

Give a Gift that Gives Back! Organic Bouquet not only offers eco-elegant flowers, but also has some great gifting and holiday items such as Organic and Eco-Friendly chocolates, cookies, gourmet gift baskets, festive wreaths and much more!  Organic Bouquet has proudly partnered with Trees for the Future to offer a 10% donation on every purchase, plus a 5% discount for our members. Just in time for the holidays.

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CharitySolar has low pricing and can price/bid-match on thousands of products and complete systems nationwide. See the catalogs with over 10,000 items at www.CharitySolar.com or call 805-462-2400 for info. Please enter "Trees for the Future" on the order form for a 10% discount or simply mention them if ordering online.

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Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, GOSUB 60 is a leading developer, publisher and distributor of casual mobile entertainment. Since 2006, GOSUB 60 has been named the only non-venture funded independent company ranked in the Top Fifteen Mobile Publishers. Founded in 2003, innovation and entrepreneurship continue to be at the forefront of this company's ideology as they add to their well-rounded library of original intellectual property and pioneer cause-related mobile entertainment. Widely endorsed as a great company to work for, GOSUB 60 regards their employees' well-being as an essential element to the company's overall success.  In collaboration with esteemed partners like Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Apple, PBS, Disney Interactive and NBC Universal, GOSUB 60 distinguishes itself as an extraordinary small business.  For more information please visit: www.MobileDeluxe.com.


TREES Winter Newsletter and 2010 Plan Ready for Download
The latest issue of the Johnny Ipil Seed News, TREES's quarterly newsletter, is available to download from our website.  Click here to go to our news page, where you can download this newsletter.  Our Plan of Action for 2010 is also now available here.


TREES Pictures on FLICKR
TREES has an incredible range of pictures from the past 30 years and as we distribute more cameras and GPS units to our field representatives, we are receiving more than ever before. We are working hard to put our best pictures from all of our project areas online. You can see our pictures by going to http://www.flickr.com/photos/plant-trees/sets/ (no logins or passwords needed).  Enjoy and share with your friends! We have compiled a special set of pictures for our 20th anniversary, which you can see here.


TREES is on SKYPE
Our international friends and partners will be happy to know that TREES can be called for free using SKYPE. Our skype name is treesftf - call us!