GreenAid - One Billion Trees for Africa - Agroforestry | Knowledge Hub | Circle Economy Foundation
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Business case
GreenAid - One Billion Trees for Africa - Agroforestry
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One Billion Trees for Africa is a frontline response to climate degradation focusing on planting and growing indigenous trees to restore lands, and create jobs and income for local communities in 11 countries in Africa, mostly in the Sahel within the Great Green Wall.

Problem

One Billion Trees for Africa is a response to the large-scale degradation of land in Africa, where the effects of climate change, droughts and extreme weather events are most severe. Tree planting is critical to Africa’s farming future; it offers a cost effective way for rural households not just to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, but to transform rural areas into profit centres that are also beneficial to the ecosystem as a whole. It’s for this reason that agroforestry is a central component of the 2021-2030 UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration, a global effort to accelerate efforts to reverse centuries of damage to forests, wetlands and other ecosystems.

Solution

One Billion Trees for Africa’s approach is to work directly with the people who depend on land-based natural resources to promote forest products and services for income, employment, food and well-being. By planting a combination of trees, including primarily native species, people benefit from the food, medicine, animal feed, and other ecosystem services that the forest provides. By providing green economic opportunities, members of the community are now returning and earning income from these resources. The revitalised forest has also improved the community’s capacity to adapt to the impacts of climate change. To date the initiative has planted over three million trees, restored over 80 hectares of land and created 89 jobs in agroecology and forest restoration. In doing so the initiative has brought back would-be climate migrants from Liberia to Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria.

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