Buy a shirt, plant a tree: How YFH supports community-based reforestation
Last week, we re-launched our website, and with it an initiative to support sustainable development. For every YFH shirt you buy, we'll plant a tree! Well, not literally. I'm not out there digging holes around Boston and planting tree seedlings (as much as my landscaper father may want me to). Instead, I'm leaving that to the experts at Trees, Water and People.
TWP is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that's been in operation since 1998. While they began addressing deforestation in Latin America, their programs have grown to encompass clean cookstoves, renewable energy, sustainable building, and reforestation, all while keeping community-based development in mind.
from treeswaterpeople.org
Protecting our forests is a crucial part of managing global climate change. Trees remove carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere, while cycling oxygen back into it. When trees are cut down, however, the CO2 is released again. It is estimated that up to 25% of the total amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere every year is released from trees being cut and burned.
But, their approach to reforestation involves more than just conserving and planting trees. They created community-led reforestation projects in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, in addition to American Indian reservations in the United States (like the one pictured above). To read more about their reforestation projects, see their website.
“All of our programs help people and the planet by providing communities with a hand-up and not a hand-out. This approach creates economic opportunity while improving the environment and human health.”
Trees, Water and People focuses on creating and maintaining tree nurseries and low-income, rural, and peri-urban areas and provide guidance on how to plant, graft, and maintain their trees. The ability to think holistically about the environmental and economic impacts is what differentiates TWP from other reforestation initiatives.
Supporting sustainable efforts that combat climate change as well as empowering communities in need (who are often hit hardest by climate change) is central to the mission of Yoga for Humanity. So the next time you grab a YFH tank top and head to yoga class, you can feel good knowing that you're not only showing your support for YFH, but also giving back to the planet and all of it's people who depend on it's natural resources.
Victoria
Founder, Yoga for Humanity