Not only is it the quickest and easiest way to donate to ITF but better still – 100% goes directly to ITF! There are no additional charges (you will see your donation on your next phone bill or your credit will be reduce by the donation amount if you are on Pay as You Go contract) and you can add Gift Aid if your phone has an internet connection (you will receive instructions in the confirmation text).

It’s a really quick and easy way to support our work so if you’ve been planning to donate but haven’t found the time why not text TREE24 and your donation amount to 70070 today? Thank you very much in advance for your support!

ITF is happy to celebrate International Day of the Forests with the launch of its new look website, and encourage you to read about our work and how to support it: [here, here and here.]

The World Rainforest Movement has launched an international appeal to the United Nations and its forest related institutions and initiatives which has been signed by over 300 signatories, stating that forest destruction needs to be urgently halted – and not just “reduced”.

You can read more about the International Day of the Forests here.

ITF’s Vice Chair of Trustees, crop physiologist and tree biologist Roger Leakey, writes:

“Agriculture has been one of the forces behind tropical deforestation. It has left local people without a traditional source of food – wild fruits, nuts and leaves from indigenous trees. Living with the Trees of Life – Towards the Transformation of Tropical Agriculture describes how these species are now being brought into tropical agriculture in ways that promote food and nutritional security, alleviate poverty through income generation and new cottage industries engaged in product processing and value-adding, rehabilitate degraded farmland and mitigate climate change – killing four or five birds with one stone.

The upshot of this is expected to be the resolution of the big environmental, social and economic issues prevalent in the tropics and currently blighting our world. In addition, because 38% of farmland is degraded, restoring farmland to health and productivity could make deforestation and the loss of its wildlife a thing of the past. If this sounds good, we need to act now to promote this role of trees in the sustainable intensification of modern agriculture.”

Climate change is having a big impact on people in the Sahel region, making rainfall patterns much less predictable and with increasing periods of drought resulting in falling crop yields or crops failing completely, which has led to food insecurity.

Trees are essential for building up resistance to climate change by protecting local ecosystems and rainfall patterns. Trees restore soil fertility and provide essential shade in areas with extremely high temperatures. Trees also provide important food and medicines that can improve both health and livelihoods.

ITF has been working with Sahel Eco on a successful “regreening” project in Sokura, Mali and Trees 4 Livelihoods will build on its success and the experiences gained from it. ITF will be working with Sahel Eco and local communities in the Mopti district of Mali so they can strengthen their traditional knowledge, skills and capacity to manage agricultural land and forest resources more sustainably and productively. The Big Lottery Fund grant will provide £475,702 towards this project over four years, and ITF will provide £50,000 from its Drylands fund.

International Tree Foundation chairman Mike Turnbull commented: “The BLF’s decision to support this important project is a great endorsement of ITF’s work and of the commitment of our development partner Sahel Eco and the local villagers – particularly in view of the recent instability from which Mali is hopefully beginning to emerge”.

Sahel Eco Director, Mary Allen Ballo commented “Coming so soon after recent events in Mali, the news of BLF support for this project is a tremendous morale boost for everyone involved here and not least for local villagers as they face their normal battle, to grow food and earn a living in the harsh climate of the Sahel.”

Working to reduce and reverse desertification

As shown in the programme, the Sahara is expanding and threatening habitats and livelihoods at its edges. Dedicated community groups are working to plant trees at the edge of the SaharaView Post to try to combat this.

ITF’s drylands projects in Ghana, Mali and Senegal promote farmer-managed natural regeneration and agroforestry to slow and reverse desertification. This rehabilitates landscapes and provides increased and sustainable income for communities across the African Sahel region, improving livelihoods and strengthening civil society.

Planting trees in these areas not only protects the habitats and environment on the edge of the Sahara, but for communities it increases sustained access to nutritious food, sustainability of income and improves soil quality and productivity of land as trees enrich the soil they grow and shed their leaves in, as well as releasing water vapour and providing shade and habitats for birds, for example.

This increased income and food security for communities also addresses the underlying causes of vulnerability to conflict which are shown by UN studies to be food insecurity and land degradation.

As with all our agroforestry projects, it ensures that human needs and the protection of the environment support one another rather than competing.

ITF needs your help to work with these communities to protect themselves from food instability, land degradation and poverty, and to protect land from desertification. If you’re looking for a way to support this work, then please support ITF by making a donation.

Protecting ecosystems

Tropical forests are home to as much as 50% of the world’s plant and animal species, are a powerhouse of the world’s weather, and are threatened by logging and encroaching agriculture.

ITF’s sustainable community forestry programmes work to ensure that the needs of humans and the needs of the environment are not mutually destructive, but can support one another sustainably. We work with local communities to plant trees, slow and reverse deforestation, increase sustained income and meet nutritional needs while improving soil and water quality and reducing pressure on forest resources.

One of our project partners, for example, protects the forest on the slopes of Mount Kenya, with community groups acting as forest guardians, reporting illegal activities that lead to deforestation, while planting thousands of trees to regenerate the forest and protect the banks of the six rivers that originate in this area from soil erosion, so that the water quality is improved and water is not lost to deforestation.

These projects, like the ones shown in the television programme, show that there can be hope for communities and wildlife in these threatened areas, with communities improving their livelihoods and those of plants and animals simultaneously through sustainable community forestry.

As ever, we need your help to work with communities to do this work. If after watching the BBC’s Africa, The Future you, like me, felt motivated to ensure the future health of the environment and its inhabitants, but didn’t know how, then here is one way you can help. Support the work of ITF. The bigger we grow, the more trees we can plant, biodiversity we can preserve, and the more we can ensure that the growing needs of the human population do not exclude the needs of the environment we live in and alongside.

Make a donation today

ITF has a UK schools project called Tree Power, which involves outdoor learning, so ITF are happy to see the recommendation from the report that “education authorities and early learning centres should ensure every child has an element of woodland-based learning”. At ITF we couldn’t agree more.

That the government has listened to this report is a huge victory for those that have campaigned against the selling off of publicly owned forests and woodland.

The DEFRA Report can be read here

The money raised will make a real impact to people’s lives, helping ITF to plant and protect trees, and to support communities here in the UK and also in Africa.

To sign up please fill in the form below. If you have any queries you can contact Alex Weaver on 01293 227068 or alex@internationaltreefoundation.org

If you would like to fundraise for ITF in an event that you have signed up for yourself, please get in contact as we’d love to give you our support.

Mission

National Tree Week endeavours to highlight the importance of trees and to encourage communities to contribute positively to their local treescape.

It was founded in 1975 as the national tree planting campaign to follow up the great success of the National Tree Planting Year, ‘Plant a Tree in ‘73’, the year in which the Dutch Elm Disease killed off millions of trees.

The Tree Council, the umbrella body for UK organisations involved in the planting and conservation of trees, was founded in 1974 to build on the success of the ‘Plant a Tree in ‘73’ campaign. As a result, each year the council’s member organisations (made up of schools, charities, tree wardens and local authorities) set up events across the country to gather upward of a quarter of a million people to muck in and plant around a million trees.

The Woodland Trust also plays a key role in the annual celebration. This year, as part of their Jubilee Woods project, the trust has sent out 18,500 tree packs to schools and communities, which will result in the planting of 1,800 acres of trees.

National Tree Week this year takes on a special significance with the spread of Ash Dieback which is currently affecting and increasing number of Ash trees in the UK.  Raising awareness of trees and tree-planting at this time is vital in order to help educate the public about this deadly tree disease and hopefully mitigate its effects before it does serious damage to the UK Ash.

Support ITF in our tree planting activities:

Take part in the tree planting season through our Plant a Tree scheme, where you can have a tree planted in your name to mark a special occasion or to commemorate a loved one.

Got an idea for a tree planting event in your community? Contact us and we will provide you with a fundraising pack and fundraising support over the telephone or via email.

ITF Tree Facts

• Trees provide shelter, fuel, medicine and nutrition.
• They enable us and other species to breathe.
• 1.6 billion people depend on forests for their livelihoods.
• 50% of the world’s species live in tropical forests alone.

The calendar costs just £12 (+£2.55 P&P). A 2 for £20 deal is available for ITF supporters and life members. To claim this please contact April Bentley on 01293 227068 or fund@internationaltreefoundation.org.

Buy the ITF calendar and other tree-theme goodies from the ITF online shop

App developers have teamed up with tree experts to make anew phone app called AshTag. It lets people send in photos and locations of ash trees they think may have ash dieback. The photos are checked by a team of experts and then action is taken to try to stop the spread of the disease.

Once trees lose their leaves, it’s much harder to spot the signs of ash dieback. So this weekend is vital: it could be the last chance to gather information about the health of our ash trees before spring. If you’re going for a walk in the woods this weekend, can you help identify ash trees in danger?

If you have a smartphone or a digital camera, it’s simple. If you spot an ash tree with signs of the disease, take a photo and send it in using the website or the AshTag app on your mobile phone.

If you have an iPhone you can download the AshTag app by searching the App Store on your phone for “AshTag” or by clicking here

If you have an Android phone search for “AshTag” in the Google Play store from your phone or use this link

If you don’t have a smartphone you can take a digital photo and upload it onto the website here: www.ashtag.org

Toby Hammond, one of the experts at the University of East Anglia who developed AshTag said: “38 Degrees members have proved they care passionately about our woodlands, through the amazing work they did saving the forests last year. If they could join us now in our fight to save Britain’s ash trees it could make all the difference to how our woodlands look in the future.”

Government has taken a few steps to try and stop the spread of the disease but there’s a real danger these measures won’t be enough – and without tracking tree health, we won’t know whether or not the government’s plans are working.

In Denmark this deadly disease has wiped out 90% of ash trees. We need to make sure that doesn’t happen to our trees here. If thousands of us get out into our woods to get the facts, we’ve got a much better chance of heading off a disaster for Britain’s beautiful woodlands.

Click here to help protect our woodlands and find out how to spot signs of ash dieback

The fungus – Chalara fraxinea – causes leaf loss and crown dieback in affected trees, and it can lead to tree death. Some 100,000 trees have been destroyed in the UK, where East Anglia has been particularly badly affected. The infection has killed some 90% of ash trees in Denmark.

Ash trees suffering from symptoms likely to be caused by C. fraxinea have been found widely across Europe. These have included forest trees, trees in urban areas such as parks and gardens, and also young trees in nurseries.

C. fraxinea is being treated as a quarantine pest under national emergency measures, and it is important that suspected cases of the disease are reported.

“I think I’ve seen a tree with ash dieback – what should I do?”

You can help to slow the spread of C. fraxinea in the UK. Please report any sightings at once. The disease is most likely to be found in newly planted young trees. You can report your findings to the following:

In England and Wales – Chalara helpline:

Call:458 33 55 77 (open 8am – 6pm every day) plant.health@forestry.gsi.gov.uk
Email: plant.health@forestry.gsi.gov.uk

In Scotland – Forestry Commission Scotland:

Call:0131 314 6156 (9am – 5pm weekdays + out of hours messaging system)
Email: fcscotlandenquiries@forestry.gsi.gov.uk

Forest Research Tree Health Diagnostic and Advisory Service
Call: 01420 23000
Email: ddas.ah@forestry.gsi.gov.uk

Fera Plant Health and Seeds Inspectorate
Call: 01904 465625
Email: planthealth.info@fera.gsi.gov.uk

More recently the environment secretary has urged the public to wash their dogs and boots and even their children after visiting wooded areas, to help stop the spread of the tree disease to other woodlands.

ITF will report more on this situation as it develops over the coming weeks and months. For more up-to-date news follow us on Twitter or Facebook.