In 2016, a project that began right here, grew into the award winning non-profit iGiveTrees.
Together, we gave hope to a rainforest that’s 93% gone. We were able to grow a global citizen initiative to restore native tree cover by encouraging organic regenerative agroforestry methods in the countryside, and organic afforestation methods in urban areas.
My name is Alana Lea, founder of the iGiveTrees projects. Through trial and error, over fifteen years, we discovered a way to restore real hope. With your help, I was able to give trees to small Brazilian communities through local NGOs. In turn, they replanted an endangered rainforest, to restore biodiversity, produce more oxygen, rebalance water systems, and sink more carbon for the benefit of the whole planet.
The trees we’ve given back to the Atlantic Forest since 2010 have been planted in the Vale do Paraiba, São Paulo state. Have a look at this historic photo to see the area, as it appeared in the 1882. We see slaves working in a coffee plantation. Descendants of some of these people are now subsistence farm families, receiving trees to heal the spirit of both people and the land, while renewing their water sources.
Here’s how the project began…
When I learned that 93% of the Brazilian rainforest where I was born had disappeared in my lifetime, I was shocked into action. So I found people who knew more about the land than I did, and together we started a reforestation project.
Over several years, I teamed up with a network of sustainable seed harvesters, small NGOs and subsistence farm families who now live on barren land that was once a lush rainforest. They want to replant their land, without adding toxic chemicals to their groundwater, as they’re being taught to do by certain entities.
In some of the areas we’ve helped plant in the past years, residents are challenged by the eucalyptus plantations (for paper pulp) that work with agrochemical companies, and their green gloved NGO partners who approve of planting genetically engineered trees, sprayed with toxic herbicides.
Once abundant water sources were sucked dry by thirsty, fast-growing, eucalyptus trees, contributing to epic droughts, while pollinators die, and remaining water supplies are contaminated by glyphosate, now recognized as a carcinogen by the World Health Organization.
In contrast, when we give rural families a gift of organically grown, native species trees, they renew the life of the rainforest to benefit us all.
Together, we are renewing the planet’s precious natural resources for our kids.
