Saturday 14 June 2014

Being Part of a Beautiful Crowd

Being Part of a Beautiful Crowd


The charity Rainforest Saver has just launched its Crowdfunder Project to raise money to help schools, farmers and rainforests in the tropical regions of Cameroon. The beauty of the project, if funded, is that it will place the vital Inga Alley Cropping technique at the heart of communities that can most benefit from it. This technique can free slash and burn farmers from the cycle of poverty, in which they are currently trapped, and will enable them to engage in a form of sustainable agriculture that helps conserve the precious rainforests.

Their current method of farming merely depletes the fertility of the soil, brings in lower and lower yields and destroys the rainforests. Inga Alley Cropping though, allows the farmer to improve the fertility of his or her plot so that they are no longer forced to burn new areas of rainforest every two or three years, but can stay on the same piece of land and look forward to improved harvests and better livelihoods. It also allows the remaining areas of rainforest to be spared from the farmers' matches, which can wreak such terrible destruction.

The funds raised by the Crowdfunder Project will enable Rainforest Saver and its Cameroon partners to plant Inga Alley Cropping plots and Inga Seed Nurseries in 5 schools in the rainforest areas of Cameroon. It will also enable our partners to teach both the children and their parents (the vast majority of which are farmers) about this vital, livelihood enhancing and environmentally sustainable technique.

Allowing a few trees to set seed will enable local farmers in the community to begin their own Inga plots, and so the new system will gradually be disseminated around the local area. As well as growing food for the children of the school in the Inga Plots, the production of seeds and seedlings will also enable the schools to raise much needed funds to improve the facilities they can offer to their students.

Handing out Inga seedlings to school kids
Our Partner Attanga Wilson, handing out Inga seedlings to children.

If you would like to help these children and their parents to grow a better future for themselves, please consider pledging your support to the save-forests-with-sustainable-farming crowdfunder project - http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/save-rainforests-with-sustainable-farming .

There are a variety of rewards on offer and we hope that both our old and new supporters will help us to achieve the necessary total by the 10th of July. We need to have that amount pledged by then, or else Rainforest Saver and its hard-working dedicated partners will receive nothing. Your pledge can help ensure we reach our total and so are able to help poor schools and poor farmers to grow their way out of poverty. It will also help ensure that more of  Cameroon's biodiverse rainforests are saved for future generations.

Environmental club and staff at Lycée de Nkoumadjap
Environmental Club at the Lycee de Nkoumadjap, keen to start planting their School Inga Plot.

Money, it seems to me, is rather like seed. It can be wasted (ie thrown on stony ground), it can be saved for a rainy day (and then quite often be forgotten about until it's too late) or it can be invested in projects that make the world a better place (ie sown on fertile ground). If you invest in the Rainforest Saver Crowdfunding Project, I promise we will do our utmost to ensure that the schools, the farmers and the local rainforests will receive the maximum benefit from your support. If you've read to the end of this blog, please take one step further and click on the link below to pledge your support.

http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/save-rainforests-with-sustainable-farming


Charles Barber
Chairman of Rainforest Saver - www.rainforestsaver.org