Hi all,
I’d like to introduce you to someone. Her name is Oromo Jenet. She is a mother of seven, and she makes her modest living as a farmer and traditional healer, growing crops for subsistence and providing health care and healing to her community. She is at once both gentle and fierce: gentle, with a smile that immediately washes away any preoccupations running through your mind, and fierce, with a will and determination as strong as the ground beneath her feet.
She lives in a small village called Koc, about a thirty-minute drive down a dusty dirt road outside of Gulu, in Northern Uganda. Although most days when she comes to Gulu, she walks, leaving just after dawn to begin her three hour walk to town. But, if you ask her, she prefers staying in Koc: she feels at home amidst her fields of sesame, maize, and cassava, and enjoys the simple conversations with her neighbors as they prepare for their harvests. In her own words, in town, “people move too fast, and there are so many cars.”
I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Oromo over the past two years, seeing her at trainings and at the group’s weekly Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA). I don’t know how to best put into words her personality, but I can say this: she has an air about her that invites a certain carefree contentment with life, while still being cognizant and connected to the challenges and realities that she, or anybody else, faces. She is grateful for what she has, despite the hardships she encounters. And she has the best laugh.
Oromo is thirty-five. Which means she was six years old when war came to her village – and twenty-eight when peace arrived for good. In between, there were periods of happiness and short-lived calm dispersed intermittently among twenty-two years of armed conflict, uncertainty and displacement. But as she’ll explain, “Life continued. Life always continues.” The same year the war came she attended her first year of school. A few years later she stopped. She was a girl, and her parents only had enough money to send some of the children to school. So, she worked the fields with her mom and sisters. Soon, she began to learn traditional healing. At sixteen, she was married. At 17, she had her first child: another girl, like her.
Today, a mother of seven, she asks many of the same questions her parents had to ask: “Can I afford sending all of my kids to school? Even if I wanted too, how can it be? I am just a farmer,” she explains to me. There are other questions she asks too, ones that her parents, or her parents’ parents, never had to ask. Questions about irregular weather patterns, and more frequent droughts, and the rains coming late, and subsequently not knowing when to plant her crops anymore to ensure their success.
In this Oromo is not alone. These are questions that many farmers throughout the tropics are beginning to ask. Oromo, like countless others, is on the frontline of what climate change feels like when it touches us. The wave of uncertainty that comes with it.
Recently she invited me to her home, so she could show me how her children are benefiting from the Native Seeds Project. I arrived to her compound with the golden late afternoon light sending incandescent sparks gleaming through her stalks of sesame as they rustled in the breeze. Two of her sons ran to greet us; she walked behind catching up with them. We sat down in her compound on a reed mat and discussed everything from climate change to the price of tomatoes at the market to her hopes for the future and what her boys’ favorite new Drake song was. We sat and shelled groundnuts, and picked leaves from the bo’o harvest with her sons.
Oromo is a part of four different initiatives with the Native Seeds Project. Last year, she attended a three-day beekeeping training and came home with two of her own beehives, now hung-up on a tree a five-minute walk from her compound. She talks about her beehives with a smile, explaining her process of colonizing her hives with bees, how at first she was a little nervous about accidentally getting stung by the bees. She harvested honey for the first time this past October – which she was able to bring to market for a good price, adding to the fund for her children’s school fees. Soon it will be honey harvest time again. Through her hives, Oromo is able to increase her income in a way that takes care of nature, with relatively little energy and time on her part, energy and time she can focus on taking care of her kids, tending her fields, and treating patients.
It is women like Oromo who make our work possible, and there are many other stories just like hers that paint the tapestry of the Native Seeds Project. From beekeeping to tree planting to the production of herbal medicines, we are working with women like Oromo to build a better and more prosperous future for families, to combat climate change and bring back Uganda’s forests.
Thank you for supporting this work.
We often think of landscapes as stagnant and unchanging. Covering vast terrain and spanning many countries, the Sahara Desert seems immutable and eternal, yet its boundaries do shift like extremely slow-moving tides. This process of fluctuation is natural but of course has been profoundly influenced by humankind. In the face of growing public awareness of climate change, more recently there have been efforts to re-green Sub-Saharan Africa – and to halt the long-term trend of the Sahara’s advancing front of desertification.
On 2002’s World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, in N’djamena, Chad, a vision emerged for a Great Green Wall of trees to halt the Sahara’s southward expansion into Africa’s Sahel belt. Wikipedia notes that the Panafrican Agency of the Great Green Wall’s most important finding was “to understand the need of an integrated multi-sectorial approach for sustainable results. From a tree planting initiative, the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel has evolved into a development programming tool.”
More than a decade later, as part of the ambitious international program AFR100, African nations committed to restore forest on an unprecedented scale as a contribution to the global effort for climate stability. With larger countries taking on more ambitious goals, tiny Uganda promised to restore an impressive 2.5 million hectares of forest.
The strategies and skills required to hit this ambitious target largely exist on paper only. Where trees have been planted in this once-forested nation, they have mostly been exotics – pine, eucalyptus, and teak. Ecologically speaking, it’s hard to call these commercial plantations “forests.” Broad experience with restoration in the complicated land tenure system of post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa simply is not yet there – so far, nobody in Uganda has restored a hundred thousand hectares with native trees, let alone the 2.5 million the nation plans to see restored by 2030.
Gratefully, solid, road-ready strategies for restoration are not unknown. Simple techniques accessible to small farmers and practicable at large scale do exist, thanks to the ingenuity of indigenous agricultural practitioners and scholars alike. Some of the most salient methodologies are:
Wild Forests and Fauna is proud to be one frontrunner in the broader effort to restore forest landscapes in climate change-vulnerable Uganda, with climate change-affected communities. The Native Seeds Project’s purpose is to bring back Northern Uganda’s tree cover for the benefit of future generations of human and other biological communities. But that’s not all. In the process of planting trees, we are creating sustainable and eco-friendly income generating activities for local communities. In so doing, these very communities are rendering themselves as resilient in the face of climate change.
Last year we piloted a nursery with 25 species of native trees, rarely planted elsewhere. This year, we look to ways to scale up our activities, planting more tree species and reaching more communities than ever before.
With your help, we were able to purchase more land for the women’s cooperative garden site. Hosting the largest native tree species nursery in the country, this land is also host to several agroforestry and native species restoration demonstration plots. With planting season rolling around, the extra land will be planted out by the women with tree seedlings from the nursery. In the coming months, we will be piloting our first broader community outreach program, bringing surrounding communities to the garden site to train them in proper tree planting care and management, and equipping them with the resources and tools they need to reforest their own communities. We will discuss with these farmers the effects of climate change, and how they can better cope with erratic weather patterns that are affecting the crop harvests upon which their livelihoods depend. With your help, we will be distributing 300,000 native tree seedlings to these communities in 2017!
Together we look toward a greener future for Africa and our planet. We’re grateful to be part of the effort. And we’re grateful that you have graciously joined our journey. We hope you will keep walking it with us.
As October rolls around and we begin to witness the subtle changes of the seasons in the US, so too are we in the Native Seeds Project preparing for changes and growth here in Uganda. If you were following the COP21 meetings in Paris last November, you might recall the acronym AFR100. It may only comprise 6 characters on paper, but its potential weight in the world of ecological restoration in Africa is tremendous. AFR100, the African Restoration Initiative, is the effort and written agreement to bring 100 million hectares of degraded forest landscapes into the process of restoration by 2030. Over a dozen African countries are in on the deal, and Uganda is one of them. What does this mean? Ideologically, it represents a potent shift in the way governments and large international institutions are thinking about reforestation and conservation.
In the recent past, the bulk of environmental work has been focused on isolated conservation or reforestation projects as an act of putting trees in the ground. But one thing that we at WildFF know to be true is that not all reforestation projects are created equal. For example, nearly all reforestation in Uganda has focused on monoculture plantations of exotic timber tree species: pine, eucalyptus, and teak. This puts trees in the ground, yes, but does little to amend soil, promote local animal species habitat, and restore local ecology. The solution: mimic forests of the past to create forests of the future. For the Native Seeds Project, this is our mantra, one that we repeat over and over again in our advocacy and unwavering commitment to native tree species restoration in the northern Ugandan region. With the recent advent of AFR100, this mantra is soon to be sung by a multitude of stakeholders involved in reforestation and conservation throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
As we gear up for our next trip to Uganda next week, we are contemplating how our impact can be most meaningful and farthest-reaching. This upcoming trip is seminal for the Native Seeds Project: armed with the two largest native tree species nurseries in the region established during previous trips, and a holistic strategy that takes into account economic livelihood and public health to complement our focus of ecological restoration, we are positioned to move from fact-finding and strategic development to full, year-round implementation. With AFR100 in place, we can begin to look for governmental partnerships and allies that are committed to make a meaningful shift from simple reforestation to the more complex, and more worthwhile, effort of restoration.
The timing couldn't be more perfect. For the women on the ground, the traditional healers that are the true heart and soul of this project, this news is greeted with big smiles and gleeful ululations, in that characteristic Acholi way. Over the past several months, they have been caring for the many native tree seedlings at our nurseries, the first batch of many to come. Day in and day out, these women have been watching their seeds grow, giving them the nourishment they need to be strong enough to leave the nursery and be planted in the fields. Just recently, the women mobilized to plant the first round of native trees at the Mon Ma Ryek Cultural and Reforestation Center from seedlings out of the nursery. Elated from this first planting round and proud of their months of hardwork, many of the women addititionally brought some seedlings home to their families and communities--a strong and heartfelt outreach to our broader communities about what we are doing, and why we're doing it.
With our first trees in the ground, we are now looking to the future. We have more seedlings coming out of the nursery soon, and we will be using those to continue planting at the Reforestation Center, representing the agroforestry systems that will down the road be used as demonstration plots for farmer to farmer outreach and plant management workshops. Our team arrives to Uganda next week, to move forward with the women, network with allies, and continue to let this vision unfold. We will certainly be updating you with all the juicy details while we're in the field. Stay tuned.
As always, the work we are doing in Uganda can not be done alone. We need to the commitment of our partners on the ground, the solidarity of allies doing similar work, and the support of people like you--people who believe in our world's forests and the life-giving beauty that they provide. So, from the bottom of hearts, we thank you. Or, rather, apwoyo matek!
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Greetings! Or, as they say in Acholiland, Apwoyo! To start, we want to thank you for your gracious support. You may think that a small donation is just a drop in a bucket, but without these drops, our work wouldn’t be possible. Your support is integral to the success of this project, and as such, you are integral to the success of this project.
On another note, you may have noticed a new report highlighting the work that Camino Verde is doing in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon to restore and rejuvenate deforested areas and ensure biodiversity in this important region. We’re new to Global Giving, and we are definitely humans, and that report was sent to you in error! It should have been posted to Camino Verde’s project page instead of ours. But, it does provide us with a great segway to introduce ourselves before diving into our project report and getting into what really matters: our progress in northern Uganda in restoring local ecology in a meaningful way.
At WildFF, we partner with place-based organizations to become allies, supporters, and co-implementers of the vision that local communities hold for the future of their environment. This strategy is born out of the recognition that conservation efforts require locally-rooted solutions. In Uganda, our primary partner is Mon Ma Ryek (Wise Women-Uganda), a women’s cooperative of a 150 traditional healers. Mon Ma Ryek works with a small team of three individuals that represent WildFF, acting as facilitators and co-implementers of the project, and helping to connect the women to the resources they need. That team of three--that’s us!
A little bit about us: We are Georgia Beasley, Robin Van Loon, and Julian Moll-Rocek.
Georgia has an academic background in Global Studies and Anthropology, and conducted her research in northern Uganda with traditional healers back in 2012. Since then, she has worked for international non-profits that focus on socio-cultural issues. She has a background in Western herbalism and women’s health, working with underserved women and survivors of sexual violence as a birth doula and advocate. For the Native Seeds Project in Uganda, she is the Community Outreach and Medical Coordinator.
Julian received his BA in Evolutionary Biology from Harvard, and has worked on community-based environmental restoration projects in Colombia, Guatemala, and Uganda. He has written for Mongabay, and has contributed his video expertise in capturing video footage of our work in Uganda to tell the story of these communities. His knowledge of academic research is informing the research component of the Uganda Native Seeds Project, allowing us to document important data on little known native tree species in the region. For the Native Seeds Project in Uganda, he is the Communications and Research Coordinator.
Robin Van Loon is the founder and Executive Director of Camino Verde, a small reforestation organization operating in the Madre de Dios region of the Peruvian Amazon. (This is where our blip in project reports come in--wrong organization!) A long-time student of traditional and indigenous agricultural and medicinal practices, Robin’s work has focused on developing community-based reforestation strategies to preserve important endangered plants of the Amazon. He is a writer, regenerative designer, and consultant in agroforestry, reforestation, and sustainable development. In the Native Seeds Project in Uganda, he is the Reforestation Specialist and Project Director.
Together, the three of us work collaboratively with the Mon Ma Ryek leadership, and other stakeholders, to bring their vision of a healthy people and a healthy landscape into reality in the northern Uganda region.
Now that you know a little about us, let’s move onto the more exciting topic of conversation: reforesting native trees and empowering women healers through the Native Seeds Project in Uganda.
A year and a half ago, this project was just a small seed with a big vision. The harsh reality was omnipresent: two-thirds of Uganda’s forests have been lost. The rest are projected to disappear in entirety by 2050. The north, particularly Acholiland, has been both historically and contemporarily marginalized: politically, economically, socially. Poverty rates are higher in the north than anywhere else in the country. So are infant mortality rates. And maternal mortality rates. Every day, more people die in the north to preventable and treatable illnesses than any other region in Uganda. Economic opportunities are few and far between. But, as always, there is hope amidst the struggle.
The women that we work with are fierce, yet overwhelmingly gentle. They are healers, yes. But they are, just as importantly, daughters, sisters, mothers and wives. They not only carry water fetched from a nearby well on their heads, but they carry the future of their people, their culture, and their forests on their shoulders. This weight both burdens them and greatly inspires them, and has served as the primary driver of their firm assertion that restoring Uganda’s forests is possible, despite popular belief suggesting otherwise. And it is them, and us, and you, that are making it possible.
The stark realities that these women face on a daily basis provide the fuel for transformation. The way we see it, the solution always lies within the problem. Forests are disappearing because the trees are more valuable cut down--for timber and for fuel needs--providing local families with the quick cash they need to send their kids to school, or treat their toddlers for malaria, or buy that goat for a family feast. Loss of forest means a lot of things, but one of those is the loss of habitat for the growth of medicinal plants, which results in the inability for these women to provide important medicine to their communities. Lack of traditional medicine for local communities means more unnecessary deaths at the hands of treatable illnesses. These overlapping, interrelated issues has informed our strategy of creating a holistic reforestation model.
Imagine that small farmers planted native tree species in agroforestry systems that provided nutrient-rich food for their families and medicinal plants for their communities. Imagine that those same agroforestry systems restored the soil and mitigated the effects of climate change (which are already being felt by the East African region). Imagine that the medicinal plants planted in those agroforestry systems were then sustainably harvested by traditional healers to produce medicinal products that have been tested and verified by the Ministry of Health and distributed in local pharmacies, providing an affordable, accessible, and sustainable alternative to pharmaceuticals for local families. Imagine that these traditional healers spearheaded a medical integration program with local hospitals, combining best practices of both traditional medicine and modern medicine, to provide local communities with the best care possible, given local circumstances and access to resources. Imagine that, through this program, we could provide a sustainable livelihood that aligns with cultural values and embodies ecological integrity for the 150 women that make up the traditional healers women’s cooperative.
This is the basic premise of what we are doing, together. It is the idea that we can mimic forests of the past to create forests for the future, and that people can heal landscapes while those same landscapes heal people.
Since last December, the project has taken many strides. Construction of one of two native tree species nurseries is finished, and the first round of seedlings that were seeded last November have grown with vigor, and are now being distributed to Mon Ma Ryek’s plot of land. From there, the women will begin planting out the some 5,000 seedlings, effectively representing the first active, planned planting of native trees for reforestation within the project. Construction of the second tree nursery, the largest native tree species nursery in all of northern Uganda, is underway at the Mon Ma Ryek Garden. Upon its completion, it will have the capacity to produce 100,000 tree seedlings per cycle, totalling 200,000 a year.
One key step in all of this is seed collecting. Because many of the trees we are reforesting are native trees that are at risk of being lost, the only way to procure the seeds are through the active search for seeds in nearby, intact forests. These are ongoing seed-collecting missions, which are carried out by our tree nursery specialist staff and many of the women themselves. Little by little and seed by seed, we collect the tree species we need.
Progress has also been made in the realm of the creation of non-timber forest products, through the development of herbal medicines that can be, in the future, sold in local pharmacies. Two herbal medicine preparation workshops have been held by and for the cooperative of women. Techniques of salve-making, to treat common rashes and minor burns, tinctures, for the preparation of potent medicines with a long shelf-life, and syrups, for coughs and other ailments, have been our main points of focus. These capacity-building, medicine-making workshops have expanded the women’s ‘traditional healer toolkit,’ increasing the efficacy of the way in which they prepare medicines, so that they can begin working side by side with physicians in local hospitals. Further down the road, these particular medicine making techniques will be employed to scale up the quantity of medicine being made by the women, which will be distributed to local pharmacies for prescription uses.
Recently, the women participated in an extensive, 5-day long introduction to beekeeping workshop, giving them a strong foundation in beekeeping techniques and apiary care. A small set of beehives have been installed at the Mon Ma Ryek land, which the women manage and care for in rotating shifts. Beekeeping is an important component of the project, tying many different elements of significance into a cohesive makeup. The bees themselves promote biodiversity, attracting birds and insects and contribute to the pollination of nearby plants. Additionally, all of the byproducts of beekeeping--honey, wax, and bee pollen--are important raw materials for the production of herbal medicines. These harvests will be crucial for the preparation of topical salves and medicinal syrups. For now, the women are starting with a small back of hives to learn, tactically, all that is involved in the care, management, and harvesting from beekeeping. In the future, we plan to scale the beekeeping component significantly, so that all medicine prepared by the women is coming directly from their own harvests, from their own land.
A lot has happened over the past few months, and the project is beginning to take a firm form. It’s a journey, one that we are proud to be a part of, excited to see where it leads, and honored to share with you. We hope you continue to support this important work (if you want to become a monthly donor, you can do so here), and share this project with a friend or loved one.
As they say in Acholiland, wawoto kacel, or, we move together. And in this world of increasing interconnectedness, we couldn’t think of anything that is closer to the truth.
From the heart of Acholiland to wherever you call home, Apwoyo matek.
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