2011 in Review

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2011 was another year of “growth” for Planting Empowerment, and also marked our five year birthday. Our investors’ trees grew taller and stronger, we improved our operations, added to the Planting Empowerment Advisory Board, and formalized and gained more recognition for our Equitable Forestry model.

Operationally, we continued to develop initiatives to increase benefits to our partner communities. Namely, we began planting staple crops between the rows of trees (agroforestry), to generate returns earlier and increase efficiencies in our operations. We expect the plantains and yams to begin producing yields next year.

In 2012, Planting Empowerment plans to plant another five hectares of trees, bringing our total area under cultivation to 25 hectares (65 acres). We will be working with a former Peace Corps colleague-turned-biochar-expert Alan Foster to jumpstart our program, based on the MIT biochar business plan (PDF) created for us in 2010. We will use the biochar to fertilize our own trees initially, but will possibly sell it to other forestry or agricultural operations in the future.

2011 also marked the year that we formalized our operating model into five principals and gave it a name: the Equitable Forestry model. We were honored to be part of a United Nations Development Program study on Biodiversity in Latin America and the Caribbean (PDF). Planting Empowerment will also be presenting the model at the Yale School of Forestry International Society of Tropical Foresters Annual Conference in January of next year.

Thomas P. Kearney III and Sherif Gamal joined our Advisory Board, adding needed experience in finance and marketing, respectively. Our updated website holds more information for investors and visitors about forest investments, impact investing, tropical deforestation, and rural development. And the Planting Empowerment blog continues to serve as source of trusted information for those interested in forestry and investing in forestry.

As more investors recognize the benefits of responsible forest investing, we’re confident that Planting Empowerment will continue to create positive impacts for our partner communities and surrounding ecosystems. We look forward to working with you towards that goal in 2012.

Have your [cacao] and eat it, too

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Planting Empowerment employee Liriano tends to a cacao sapling planted for the UNDP projectConventional thinking by most agronomists holds that creating a more biodiverse field or planting area ultimately reduces yields. However, a recent study entitled "Combining High Biodiversity With High Yields in Tropical Agroforests" suggests just the opposite: that increased yields and biodiversity can go hand-in-hand. The article, authored by Clough et al., examined biodiverse cacao (cocoa) plantations in Indonesia. 

Last year through the UNDP's Small Grants Program we worked with Arimae to plant cacao in some of their older tree plantations. Arimae planted some of the cacao beneath the canopy of a 10-year old mahogany stand, and the rest in a new parcel of rosewood with more sun exposure. We will be closely monitoring the differences in growth and yield between the two parcels as they mature and begin to produce.

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On "Forests vs. Food?"

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On February 7th TIME magazine posted an article on their website entitled Forests Vs. Food?. The piece examines the relationship between deforestation and rising food prices.

According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), global food prices have reached record peaks this year, and are expected to keep rising. They attribute this rise to increased demand for resource-intensive products such as beef, and poor farming conditions leading to reduced yields in agriculture-producing countries.

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Update on the Small Grants Program Project

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Liriano clears around one of the baby rosewood saplings that the community planted through the SGP program. One of the most exciting things I saw during my recent trip to Panama was the results of the United Nations Development Program's Small Grant Program (SGP) project that we helped Arimae receive and execute. With the financial support from the SGP, the community built a small nursery to produce rosewood, and then planted five hectares of those rosewood saplings with their own initiative. Another interesting part of the project is that the seeds for the rosewood came from their own reserve, so the saplings should be well suited to the local climate and soil conditions.
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