![Kanyoor Ilkeek Oleng! We love trees very much!]()
Kanyoor Ilkeek Oleng! We love trees very much!
We just returned a few days ago from our amazing immersion experience in the Valley of Enkutoto Nalala in the Rift Valley with the Maasai people in Kenya Africa. All of us learned about each other! This communication and foundation building is so necessary to ACHIEVE OUR GOALS for wide scale growth. Starting a new project in a new country required all of us to focus and adapt while practicing deep intuitive listening, flexibilty, and transparent communication. We successfully responded to the cultural differences and developed some extra aspects to incorporate into our human rights based tree planting model to respond to the unique cultural pressures we found in Kenya.
We hsve planted 100 trees already! Everyone was paid and learned alot through the process oriented capacitation led by Tree Jenny. The community will plant another trees in the coming week in order to apply what they learned and continue with local leadership. These initial pilot plantings are important as we prepare and look forward to following their progress and learning where we need to adapt further both in effective delegation and community empowerment and management as well as highest survival rate possible for the trees. Forward!
We give our most heartfelt thanks to our amazing Green Dream Tree Team composed of an international cast of intriguing and intelligent characters. Dalmas Tiampati, the founder of the Maasai Center for Regenerative Pastoralism is a visionary who has made great progress in spreading the word with surrounding Maasai clans as well as governmental officials in Kenya. Dalmas effectively advocates and implements holistic grazing rotation of goats, sheep and cows so critical to the Maasai culture and survival.
Elena brought all of her skills to play during the three week working adventure in Kenya. As an independent consultant with our organization, Elena specializes in community relations in conservation and environmental education. As a biologist she is the one who discovered that Ipomeae, an invasive species toxic to the animals and harmful in large quantity for regeneration of grasses and soils, has potential to be used as a green manure.
The disovery of a use or the Ipomeae in our project as an ingredient in the fertile soil Bokoshi compost making branch with the local Maasai women could not be better! Because the removsal of this species requires digging it out by the roots, while its leaves are particularly useful in our compost, sets up a perfect scientific investigation while we create jobs for local Maasai women to remove it little by little. The plan is perfect since we do not want to remove it in large swaths due to increased drying of uncoverd soils in the Equatorial sun. Nevertheless, additional research is necessary, like whether it is suitable for compst for human gardens. We will continue our investigation into important, far reaching scientific questions as part of our social tree planting replication.
We could not have achieved this first MISSION trip to build long term agreements and foundations for our replication without the generous support of Franck St. Loubert. Not only has he donated financially to our cause, he has also played an important and active role in working with us and the Maasai communites. Franck has a friend in France who donated a product called POLYTER which helps the trees to resist drought and grow stronger roots for better chances of survival. We activated this miraculous product with most of the trrees we planted, of course, leaving a few trees untreated to test its effectiveness. We saw the local people connect deeply with the product, probably because they have already been ravaged by the effects of a 3 year drought which only ended 1 year ago. We look to achieve outstanding growth rates through good follow up care and the help of this miraculous POLYTER product donated by Phillipe and Franck.
Notably, the Super Elena had worked with this product before in Autrailia so we were one step ahead and ready to implement it effectively based on prior experience. Seemed like we were assisted by the Universe of good circumstabnces again and again during our time with the Maasai people. It rained just enough and the village welcomed us with such ipen arms, we will never firget these our first steps and all that they mean to us personally and to the ongoing work we strive to do for mitigating climate change with human rights focus and adaptation.
In addition, Franck prepared a baseline study, wowing the Maasai people with his expert drone footage aiming to show the areas where we have already begun planting trees and the eventual positive effects evident in future studies of the same land. Creating proof positive of the benefits of silvo pastoral systems is critical to large scale replication and scaling up and out this fair pay model for afforestation in the most needy zones around the Equator.
The reality of the situation in Kenya hit us hard! What stood out most for me personally was the complete absence of trees in so many areas, or trees so hacked by needy people for branches and firewood that they only have a few years left to live. We saw humans and animals and soils in dire need and subject to ongoing encroachment of the desert. It was incredibly intense to witness climate change in all of its destruction, the negative effects of drought and poverty and the clear dwindling of species, especially some of the most iconic animals still roaming free our planet.
Together, our leadership team is more committed than ever to be a force for change and regeneration with social empowerment included in our model meaning FAIR PAY for tree planters and long term follow up management and process based education to stop further deforestation. Planting trees is not enough. We have to create sustainable livelihoods through entreprenuership and jobs to create real awareness so needy people don't have to keep cutting down trees.
As always, our work model is based on horizontal power with peer vilgilance and participation of neighbors together to achieve widespread land regenerationt through planting biodiverse trees for human food soveriegnty and wildlife and water conservation. We are looking to the future to replicate more.
We are so grateful to everyone who supports this replication in Kenya. We must work with dligence and joy to achieve the new paradigm. Thank you for being part of our Green Dream Tree Team with the Maasai people! Every tree makes a difference. We can stop desrtification one tree at a time. We are diggning deep and we need your help! Please donate generously to aasai planting projects scheduled for the next long rains in April 2019.
![Everyone all together enjoyed planting trees!!]()
Everyone all together enjoyed planting trees!!
![Dalmas Tiampati Leader of MCRP Kenya]()
Dalmas Tiampati Leader of MCRP Kenya
![ICONIC SPECIES LIKE ELEPHANTS IN DANGER OF EXTINCT]()
ICONIC SPECIES LIKE ELEPHANTS IN DANGER OF EXTINCT
![Polyter product donated for drought resistance]()
Polyter product donated for drought resistance
![Maasai women removing Ipomeae for use in compost]()
Maasai women removing Ipomeae for use in compost
![Creation Baseline study footage Thanks to Franck]()
Creation Baseline study footage Thanks to Franck
![Elena-expert with effective systems community edu]()
Elena-expert with effective systems community edu
![Avid bird watcher, Elena looks to the future!]()
Avid bird watcher, Elena looks to the future!
![Digging deep -- Tree Jenny goes to Kenya!]()
Digging deep -- Tree Jenny goes to Kenya!