• Tree Aid works with communities to grow food and incomes in the Sahel area. Growing food sustainably is vital, but Tree Aid also respects that local communities need incomes, otherwise societies just can't stay stable.
• Since Tree Aid began in 1987, it has worked with communities in the Sahel (Africa) to restore over 167,000 hectares of land and plant over 27 million trees. 
• Tree Aid restores and protects ecosystems in countries such as Niger, Mali, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Senegal & Ghana. 
• Projects provide local people with the skills and tools they need to restore the land, like in Mali, where locals are trained in water and soil conservation. 
• Tree nurseries are installed and enterprises are created, which both give empowerment to the people through improved food security and better incomes through the trading of produce. 
• Tree aid projects also include producing fuel-efficient stoves which use half as much fuel as traditional ones in countries such as Ethiopia, which reduces the number of trees being cut down. 
• In Metema, Ethiopia, Tree Aid has been directly involved in showing locals how to harvest frankincense sustainably while protecting the forest. Tree Aid doesn’t just plant trees where needed, but helps local communities work with resources they have, in a sustainable fashion, to provide these vital incomes. 
• Temperatures are rising, rainfall is more unpredictable and droughts & floods are becoming more frequent and severe. The land is losing its fertility and is no longer able to support plant life. 17% of the world's population lives in Africa and yet the continent only contributes 4% of global carbon emissions. This region of Africa is being hit very hard by the climate crisis. 
• 12 million hectares of land are lost to desertification globally each year, with 300 million people in the Sahel being affected by climate change. Too many people are without food, for reasons that are not in their control. This is where Tree Aid comes in. 

We know that carbon dioxide is absorbed by trees, which releases oxygen in exchange, but did we know that 40% of that carbon absorbed by trees is sent down to the roots? The roots of the trees leak out carbon in a very strategic way to soil microorganisms.

Plants are feeding the soil microorganisms carbon and the soil microorganisms are bringing plants mineral nutrients.

In this process, the soil microorganisms make a carbon glue out of the carbon fuel, which creates a little habitat in the soil, creating little pockets to control the flow of water and air. This is one way that carbon gets fixed in the soil.

Soil has the unique ability to sequester carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. This soil contains an entire universe of life. In every handful of healthy soil, there are more organisms than the number of people that have ever lived on planet earth. Those organisms are processing organic matter that is in the soil and putting the nutrients into a form that the plant needs.

We need to eat what's in the dirt. The mineral nutrients are transferred to the plants, which are broken down by our digestive systems when we consume these plants.

The quality of the soil determines the quality of food, our health and the absorption of carbon from the atmosphere. The health of our soils and the health of our planet are strongly connected. Deforestation, over-cultivation, and the usage of chemical fertilizers are destroying life in the soil, which in turn destroys the plants needed to help sequester carbon dioxide. Planting the correct trees, in the correct places is essential. Tree Aid knows this.

All our soils under chemical agriculture are almost completely devoid of microorganisms. Spraying the soil with toxic chemicals kills the very microbes we need to give us health and pull carbon from the atmosphere.

The more tilling is done, the weaker the soil gets, and the more farmers are compelled to use chemical sprays. This is the vicious cycle of industrial agriculture.

Without trees or plants, the land is losing its fertility making it harder for people to grow food.

This wonderful information has come from the extraordinary documentary on Netflix, 'Kiss the Ground'.

We highly recommend to give it a watch.