Involving kids in tree planting is a first step in making our planet green
Watch Below for the catching moment!!!
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TroPEG's Analogue Forestry Demonstration
site before Land preparation
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TroPEG's Analogue Forestry Demonstration
site after Land preparation
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August
2014 was my second international trip out of my country Cameroon and first out
of the African continent. It’s no regret at all that I was part of this great expedition
in a great country Sri Lanka. During this trip we had seed exchange activity
with our international friends at Belipola Centre, Sri Lanka. I came back with
so much enthusiasm; determine to get more involved in conservation by playing
key role. These involve designing TroPEG’s first demonstration site at Diongo
Village, training others on conservation techniques creating awareness on the
reality of climate change.
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| Kid active in transportation of seedlings |
Learning from the experience of a senior researcher and front liner in the action of Conservation (Dr Ranil S.), we in TroPEG think a little way we can impact our community is creating Analogue Forestry demonstration plots.
Analogue
Forestry is a forestry technique that is holistic in it approach and so considers
trees within forest ecosystem to be one component (1%) and that for forest to
have full capacity we need to consider other life forms (99%). Also planting trees is just a first step in
restoring a degraded forest and for it to have it full beauty and capacity we
have to allow nature to self-complicate (by this we mean allowing other life
forms within the community to express the complexity of real pristine forest
vegetation).
It is in this backdrop that we thought it wise to start
planting our first international trees in our demonstration site in Diongo
village few kilometres from Kumba, Cameroon.
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| Kid transporting seedling |
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| Kid filling ground on planted seedling |
Going
back to historical time 5 decades or more behind, our parent use to plant
trees; a sign of continuity for the long tree planting tradition established by
the early man (i.e. domesticating useful plants around settlement area). These
always permitted them to harvest from trees they planted and in addition have
useful trees beside settlements. Today the case seems different as young people
in my generation are gradually loosing this tree planting ability. This could
partially be attributed to their mind set owing to the reality of today.
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| Kid planting Inga edulis |
People
think going urban means void of trees and forest, some have completely lose
patience in long term achievements, everyone is going fast hence they think
planting a tree that you can only enjoy fruits 5 years later is a waste of
time. We should remember that most of the fruit trees we enjoy today around us were
planted by our great grandparents. If we do not teach these digital age kids to
plant, it’s going to be worst in the future, hence let start earth greening with
kids alongside. In our tree planting in March 2015 included exciting kids who
wanted to be part of the planting exercise in our Demonstration site.
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| TroPEG member planting Inga edulis |
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| Joint participation during tree planting exercise |
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| Joint participation during tree planting exercise |
