The photo is fuzzy. But the message is clear. A man is painting an indigenous tree because it has value. "Leave it and its nutritious fruit to grow", signals the bright red. Daily, refugees and nationals cut poles for building and fuel for cooking from the woodlands in which the refugee settlements are ensconced. The paint could save this useful tree, one of two Grewia species that grow in the region.
“Justin is a community leader,” confirms our field worker Tiko. “He is painting this tree to indicate that it is edible, therefore shouldn’t be cut.”
This exercise was part of trainings that Tiko ran11-13 July on "farmer managed natural regeneration", commonly known as FMNR. We trained 75 people, 10 women and 65 men, in Rhino Camp Refugee Settlement, Siripi and Ofua zones. The training contributed to one of our goals: the conservation of natural woodlands and indigenous tree resources.
"In FMNR, tree seedlings do not need to be purchased since living stumps are already there just hidden within the soil," says the text that we use to train from. That is an inspiring statement. Just by managing the sprouting stems of these stumps, by favouring the two or three of the strongest ones and removing the others, we can bring back trees. The root system still is intact and pumps all its energy into growing the stems we leave. They shoot up and can form a tree with a canopy that creates tree cover.
If we do not "manage" the stump, however, it will forever resemble a bush, with many thin straggly stems, which may be used to make rope, but are not otherwise so useful or “multifunctional” for people or the ecosystem. The living tree stump cannot break out of that growth form without human intervention.
The ability of cut trees to regrow is very common in tropical trees, except for palms and tropical pines, but is not just a tropical phenomenon. The northern hemisphere originally relied heavily on the ability of trees to coppice and is returning to it as it shifts from fossil fuels. For centuries, English metal workers coppiced species such as hazel for their iron forges. And today, in another project, ICRAF is taking advantage of the ability of willows to coppice. Out-of-work miners are creating green jobs by growing biomass to generate electricity and heat for homes in a degraded former coal mining area in Bosnia.
In East Africa, sprouting stumps are often astoundingly plentiful. “There’s one every meter or so!” exclaimed Tony Rinaudo, the man who popularized FMNR, said when he visited our refugee hosting area. (See the link below to his fabulous book about his journey.) And Lalisa and other colleagues found 67 living stumps per hectare in NW Uganda in one of our early studies, also linked below.
It’s simply a “no brainer “that we promote FMNR. Planted seedlings have a serious failure rate. They can go into shock, be stepped on by a cow, or fail for a panoply of other reasons. From previous reports, you’ll recall that Sarah’s study found a 52% survival rate of our planted seedlings. Our monitoring in 2022 found a survival rate of about 64%. With FMNR, success could be said to be almost 100%. Long-surviving stumps rarely perish. They have already withstood fire and more. What a win!
Though this was not our first training in FMNR, our new approach of community visioning flagged it up again as a way to go. “During community visioning,” said Tiko,“communities identified inadequate firewood and lack of construction materials due to pressure exerted by the population influx. Conservation of natural resources by practicing FMNR was an ideal solution.”
The training in FMNR was also a way to address the thorny issue of indigenous tree species. Our training curriculum explicitly defined Its main objective as “to impart knowledge and skills on management of trees raised from living stumps in order to add trees to the existing crop or range lands by facilitating the growth of important indigenous tree species.” The italics are mine.
The challenge is real, says Tiko. “During community visioning, refugee preferences were mostly fruit trees and fast-growing exotic species such as Gmelina, Melia and Neem. The uptake of indigenous tree seedlings is very poor though we continue to educate the community about the relevance of growing those trees.”
The following were the topics covered by the training: definition of FMNR and its principles; advantages of practicing FMNR; and steps followed in FMNR. We thank Tiko and team for the training, the community for keenly picking it up, and you for funding it!
In a sneak preview, so far in 2023 we have raised 116,000 seedlings of 24 species, 12 of which are indigenous to Uganda and 12 of which come from other parts of the world. Half are fruit/food species, the others mainly grown for timber, poles, and energy. All, but particularly the indigenous species, provide varying ecosystem services such as shade, stabilization of rivers, habitat for pollinators, and improvement of soil.
Thanks so much. We appreciate every donation. If you can, do consider donating again or converting to a monthly donation. If you already donate regularly, thanks for being a stalwart.
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In early March, the team implementing this project gathered outside Kampala at Uganda's national forestry research insitute. Project leader Sola said the aim was to "appreciate each other, look at what we have promised our donors, and discuss how we meet the obligations, the status of delivery and how we keep track".
A twelve hour bus journey from the refugee-hosting landscape where we have worked since 2018, the two day meeting was a pivot moment and chance to reconnect and refresh. We began with introductions.
"My role is help refugees to meet their tree-related needs," said Tiko, who runs our intervention with households in Rhino Camp Refugee Settlement.
"We encourage refugees to grow trees for many benefits like poles, fruit, medicine, and soil and water conservation," said Joel, who leads our work in Imvepi Refugee Settlement.
"I feel passionately about environment," said John, who leads the project's learning center and large nursery. "I manage production of the indigenous and exotic species that we give to communities and trainings on agroforestry."
Our host was Erik. "At ICRAF we do research and transform lives," said ICRAF's representative in Uganda.
Describing herself as a tiger in a team-building exercise, Sola said the project was now keenly focusing on scaling up agroforestry and nature-based solutions, including home gardens, trees in institutions and assisted natural regeneration of trees. Still, the prime focus in the meeting was our longstanding approach and how to better it.
Raising and offering seedlings of a range of species to the refugees from South Sudan and adjacent Ugandan families has had clear benefits. To cite two, refugees with longer exposure to our approach derive more fuelwood from their plots and less from the forest than less exposed housefolds, and have more fruit for consumption and sale.
What was different in this meeting, however, is that we had data that showed for the first time numbers of seedlings raised, distributed, planted and survived. This allows us to examine our assumptions. Maximum respect goes to the field team for maintaining good records and to Sola for investing in this.
The results are rich with some surprises. With some species that we believed refugees wanted, such as mango and jackfruit, less than 50% of seedlings distributed were planted. In contrast, despite worries about indigenous trees not being highly desired, we found that an astounding 94% of Albizia coriaria and 96% of mahogany (Khaya spp.) seedlings that were distributed were planted.
Albizia coriaria also had the second highest survival rate - 74% - after Gmelina aborea, the fast growing exotic timber tree, our most popular tree, which had a survival rate of 89% and made up 27% of all seedlings distributed.
In total, we distributed 103,013 seedlings of 22 species - 13 indigenous, five naturalized and four exotic - of which 72,304 were planted and monitored: of these, 46,173 survived. Overall, the survival rate was 64% percent.
So what do we want to improve? It may seem evident to you as a donor and reader. But clearly we need to provide seedlings of species that are wanted, at the right time - when the rains are impending or started - and we need to improve uptake (planting of what is distributed) and survival. Here the team had plenty of thoughts.
"What has brought us here to this meeting is the 'how'," said ICRAF country representative Erik. "We do not want to off load species to hit targets. We need better tree planting preparedness. That will give us much higher survival."
"We should never distribute seedlings when the holes are not ready," said Joel. "Our community based facilitators can alert us when a community has prepared the land."
The team said too that we needed to work more with groups. "Adoption of trees and agroforestry is about peer to peer not targeting households," said Sola. "When you work with groups, by the time you leave, you have touched 50 people."
It was agreed that we would work mostly with existing groups, as NGOs have already fostered a large number in the settlements. "We don't have to form too many groups, when there are already many," said John.
Groups and asking more from communities in terms of land preparation and readiness are major pivots for us and need more resources. But we are undaunted.
Finally, the meeting had a rich discussion about whether we might be having any unintended consequences, a common occurrence in projects. Could we be, for instance, disinhibiting cutting of trees, particularly indigenous ones, by handing out seedlings without sufficient dialogue with the population?
Here the field team was also ready with its response. It was not the first time it had thought about this. They did not say that we were disinhibiting tree cutting but it was clearly a possibility that they addressed.
"We need to take time to explain the value of each tree," said Tiko. "I normally tell families that the major purpose of the project is regreening the landscape. I say - plant trees to add on to what you have. I also say - don't cut trees, prune them."
"Yes, we have to ensure that families do not cut to plant," said Joel. "We want them to work with what they have. If you cut one, it's not a sin. But we don't want clear felling. Judicious cutting is part of sustainable management."
We would like to thank all of you who have donated to this valiant project which, as you can see, is edging forward with deep thought and hard work. Tree growing is not a picnic. But every indigenous seedling that reaches 1-2 meters is likely to stay, offering endless ecosystem services. And every exotic is offering the rapid returns that the refugees and hosts need too.
We are going for the best mix of the two. More about that in our next report. I have eyes on 28 species and a rationale for each. Watch this space. And thanks again so much for your tireless support. For those who donate regularly, my heart melts when I see your name. About those who are not regular donors, we feel just as warmly! We are aware of the global economic slow down. To all, donate when and as you can. Thanks!
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Isaac David, 35, and Betty, 30, are a hardworking married couple. Refugees since 2017, they have been in our agroforestry program since 2018. They currently tend a whopping 534 trees – a figure way beyond our expectations.
Our early research showed refugees willing to plant up to 55 trees on the 50 x 50-meter plot allocated to them by the Ugandan government and UN. Isaac and Betty have far surpassed this by absorbing the 50 x 50 m2 plot of Isaac’s brother who returned to South Sudan and by renting from Ugandan villagers nearby (a quarter acre costs the equivalent of $27 a year).
From the start, they needed trees. “Our plots were earlier occupied by refugees who were repatriated. They left the area depleted of natural resources” says Betty.
But the family has also showed huge vitality and get go. “This is a very active family where every member of the family participates,” says ICRAF forester and field assistant Joel Adriko who has worked with them for four years.
The team work has paid off. The Amule household has an impressive 14 species of trees.
- seven species of fruit/food trees (mango, papaya, guava, Annona or soursop, avocado, jackfruit, and moringa, which has edible leaves, for a total of 95 trees);
- two species of nitrogen-fixing soil-improving woody fodder shrubs (Calliandra calothyrsusand Sesbania sesbans, for a total of 29 trees);
- two exotic timber species (Gmelina arborea and Azadirachta indicaor Neem, which is also medicinal, for a total of 167 trees) mostly in woodlots at 1 to 2 meters spacing;
- one fast-growing timber tree native to Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Tanzania but not Uganda (Melia volkensii, for a total of 171 trees) also largely in woodlots;
- and two indigenous timber trees (40 fast-growing, bee-friendly, yellow-flowering and largely termite resistant Markhamia lutea and five African mahogany – Khaya grandifoliola - for a total 45 trees)
It is still a hard life. But all the school-aged children are in enrolled, and the family can feed itself and buy some of the items it needs. Among their trees, they cultivate tomatoes, eggplant, onions, pumpkin, pigeon peas, okra, broad beans, maize, groundnuts (peanuts), cassava and sweet potatoes.
We believe their success is in large part due to the backbone of trees.
Every construction in the homestead is hammered together from wood. Its livestock - goats, sheep, pigs, ducks, chicken, and pigeons - flourish in tree shade (less heat stress, more weight gain). The poultry is safe at night from wild animals such as civets in a wooden coop. The goats and sheep munch on the protein-rich leaves of fodder trees.
Betty and her adolescent daughters rarely have to venture into the bush for firewood, and Isaac industriously makes wood items for sale such as beds and tables. His poles of Neem and Melia volkensii sell each for 7,000/=, about $2, while fruit of papaya sell for $0.75-$1 each, and its leaves mixed with chili make a local insecticide.
We would like to see more indigenous trees on the land they work: eleven of the 14 tree species that the household is raising are exotics. We did not find any of the indigenous fruit trees that we promote, like Vitex doniana and Balinites aegyptiaca. We would also like to see more of the threatened keystone species that we raise, such as Afzelia africana and Milicia excelsa (Mvule), on and around refugee plots,
We need to do more to explain to the households we work with how indigenous trees and biodiversity benefit people, and more generally why tree diversity is important. Here are some of the arguments.
- Native fruit species are often exceptionally nutritious, and the more diverse the portfolio of fruit trees, the more likely it is to provide year-round nutrition and income.
- Planting monocultures is a disease risk, reducing native vegetation that is crucial for healthy populations of natural pest controllers such as birds and beneficial insects. Mealybug Paracoccus marginatus has already caused losses of refugees’ papaya trees.
- Planting monocultures of exotic trees threatens pollination services by reducing bees’ access to the nectar and pollen-rich flowers of native trees. It also threatens honey production, an important traditional practice, income source and dietary delight.
- Tree diversity is at the heart of resilience since different tree species use resources differently. So, in one example, an area with a diversity of trees that use water differently will suffer less impact from drought.
Some of us lose sleep about this how to explain this. But project lead, Dr Phosiso Sola, says that we will get there. “It’s economics. Indigenous trees are by and large slower growing and do not seem to give the short-term returns needed for refugee survival.”
As 2022 ends, we give ourselves a pat on the back. We more engaged than ever with the UN refugee agency, World Food Programme, and the European Commission’s ECHO office, which just issued landmark requirements to reduce the environmental footprint of EU-funded humanitarian operations.
“Through community nurseries, the local population has access to the many goods and services that trees provide, including food through fruit forests and agroforestry,” the document says. Growing trees also “helps address shortages of firewood and construction material”.
Such ideas have become mainstream within just the past three or four years, as the climate and biodiversity crises bear down on us. We are proud of the outsized impact this small project has had on thinking.
“We have nature-based solutions for refugee-hosting areas and displacement settings that can be scaled,” states Sola.
And to all of you who have donated, she says, “We are deeply grateful. We could not do this without you. It has been a successful year.”
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As summer draws to an end in the northern hemisphere and the rains begin in our part of the southern hemisphere, we are glad to be back in touch with our third report of the year.
This time we want to give a particular shout to Sarah, who volunteered from February through April at the agroforestry learning center and conducted a long-awaited survey. Helped by Erik on her survey tool and our community-based facilitators who translated and supplied lists of beneficiaries, she sampled 80 households, 70% belonging to refugees, 30% to Ugandan nationals.
Her survey counted total trees, surviving trees, and trees with edible parts, and asked qualitative questions. Seventy per cent of the interviewees had had one or more years of experience with ICRAF while 30% were newer participants. Her findings were cheering. Here are some of them:
The last finding was particularly music to our ears. We had hoped that we were lessening pressure on natural vegetation and lightening the burden of firewood collection for women. It seems that we may be!
Sarah also found that refugee respondents involved for one or more years earned about $13 more per year from sale of tree products than respondents involved for less time, a considerable sum in the local economy. Poles and fruits were the most commonly sold products, the income usually used to buy soap, medicine, school uniforms and extra food items.
On food security, refugees with less than one year of participation had approximately 3 fewer fruit or “food” trees than those with a longer involvement. “Papaya, mango and tubers of indigenous Borassus palm were described as useful for relieving hunger among children during the food insecure months of May and June,” her report said.
Finally, our survival rate is 53.1% for seedlings provided to refugees and 81.3% for seedlings supplied to hosts. Let’s be entirely frank. We have to improve that figure for refugees with better training and more homestead visits.
We don’t take these findings as gospel. But they are hugely encouraging. We wish Sarah all the very best in her PhD studies. In her last email, she said she had loved her time in the settlement. We have supported her in a grant application to return.
Thank you so much for contributing. Kindly make you next donation recurring. GlobalGiving advises us to convert as many of our followers to monthly as we can. Even $10 a month will give us more financial predictability. Thanks!
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Happy 2022! We hope you are well. For our side, we are! The refugee project is bounding forward for many reasons but particularly thanks to a training on tree seed entirely paid for by you.
Coming none too soon, the training shifted our paradigm and is bringing new species into our nursery and leading to payments to community tree seed collector groups formed out of the training. This for us is win, win, win. We know it is for you too.
The participants were 24 refugees, farmers, NGO staff, and our own nursery workers and communility mobilisers. Our field manager, John Osidi opened the three day training by saying, "Let us not keep what we are learning in books. We are training you to replicate the knowledge and to be entrepreneurs - seed collectors. We can create green jobs and enhance household incomes."
We were privileged to have two lead trainers, both from hundreds of kilometers away. The National Forestry Authority’s Joseph Ochwo, said participants would "learn different methods of seed collection, what determines the method, how to extract different seeds, how to plan a collection, how to check seed quality, and how much seed to collect”.
The veteran forester, who has trained a generation of Ugandans in tree seed, added that “Some trees have seed that are challenging” and launched into terms like “orthodox” and “recalcitrant” seed -- seeds that do and don’t tolerate drying respectively -- which attendees grasped impressively fast.
In his introductory remarks, co-lead trainer Said Mutegeki, plant conservation officer from Tooro Botanical Garden, explained the “why” of the course.
“We want biodiversity maintained in the most stable way. Let’s have seed collector groups close to seed sources. Then they will start attaching value and not looking at native species as a nuisance.”
Mutegeki, who runs a nursery with over 120 species in Western Uganda, got straight into how to work with farmers who have trees that you need to collect from on their land.
"If you explain from the outset why you want to multiply it, most communities are friendly. Seek permission with polite and convincing words so there is no miscommunication, and talk about the goodness of trees.”
He added “And when you have indenitified potential seed sources, protect the area jealously. Someone may set fire to it.”
Expectations for the training were high. "We have come to learn how to build forest systems," said Moses Ebong from Danish Refugee Council. A woman farmer said tree cutting “had tampered with the weather” and asked the trainers to inspect fruit from her trees
Finally, following Ugandan protocol, forester Magnum Tabule from the district forestry office formally launched the workshop. "This training is core, and we have been vying for it for some time. Our nursery operators have been failing."
Dear supporters, let me assure you that our nursery has not been failing. It has led the way in Imvepi and Rhino Camp Refugee settlements in producing indigenous trees as well as useful exotics. But we knew we needed to do better.
For difficult to acquire species like Mvule, we have often sourced seed from the National Tree Seed Center, which typically collects it from outstanding Mvule trees distributed across Eastern Uganda. But what is the implication of carrying seed from eastern to northwestern Uganda? What might this do to our sub-population of this endangered stately hardwood?
Local collection is better. “We need to collect seeds from trees that are adapted to the local ecology,” stressed Ochwo. And preserving local genetic variety is key.
We have also been sourcing seeds for fruit like papaya and jackfruit from market ladies in Arua town. This we might continue. The seed likely comes from all over the district or even region from a large number of mother trees that have been selected for producing the juiciest and sweetest fruit.
But less positively we have been raising some tree species from seed collected from a very small number of mother trees. “Last year we raised all our Albizzia gummifera seedlings from the tree here at our learning center,” admitted one nursery worker.
All this is a thing of the past now. The trainers impressed upon us the need to collect from a multitude of mother trees to maintain and maximize genetic diversity.
Following a curriculum designed by Botanical Gardens Conservation International, which uses the Millennium Seed Bank standard, we were taught to collect from 50 mother trees spaced at least 100 meters apart for each species, and that we should collect no more than 20% of the seed from any one tree.
This is no small challenge. But in communications from the field this week, the team said it had been able to make collections from about 30 mother trees for some of our important species.
The training has paid us back in spades, not just on handling tree seed but also with its focus on growing a sizable range of “native” trees, something the team has struggled with at times.
Answering “Why should we plant native trees?” Mutegeki reeled off, “They are getting depleted, they withstand our soils, they are better adapted, and they have a longer life span than exotics. Also, for genetic pool, shade, and pest control. They support bats, beneficial insects and birds.”
Mutegeki and Ochwo were delighted just this week, when I told them that the team was now monitoring flowers on indigenous trees that would soon set fruit then seed. For the botanists among you, these include Ximenia americana, Sterculia africana, Prosopsis africana, Parinari excelsa, Kigelia africana, Carisa edulis, and the fruit-bearing liana Saba florida.
We really benefitted from this training, which included a day in the forest watching high tree climbing and seed collection from the canopy and pressing tree leaves. We were grateful for a chance to ask basic questions such as “Is it ok to pick seeds from the ground?” The answer from Joseph Ochwo was “ideally not”, because it can introduce seed-boring insects and mold.
In other sound advice, the forester said, "If nothing else, remember that dry seed is the key to good storage. Don't mix seed from different places. And deny the seeds light and moisture. Those things trigger germination”.
Mutegeki’s last words were “Trees are going extinct because people have needs. When we plant them, we are adding a brick”.
Thank you for your support. And if you have read this far, please consider becoming a monthly donor. We push on!
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