The women inspiring a reforestation revolution
Greenhouse
In celebration of International Women’s Day, Greenhouse is making a forest-sized donation to TreeSisters, a grassroots network of women planting over two million trees a year in the tropics.
Every month, we will fund the planting of 330 trees, totalling 3,960 trees by the end of the year.
TreeSisters is a global network of women dedicated to embracing a feminine response to climate change. Their ultimate aim is to plant a billion trees every year; an extremely ambitious target but one that Clare Dubois, founder of TreeSisters, thinks is necessary, given the urgent need.
According to the World Resources Institute, 30% of global forest cover has been cleared, while another 20% has been degraded. Most of the rest has been fragmented, leaving only about 15% intact. Statistics like these are the reason why TreeSisters is calling for a ‘reforestation revolution’.
The TreeSisters initiative focuses on tropical reforestation. Not only are they ‘the lungs’ of the earth but tropical trees are fast growing and sequester carbon three times faster than temperate trees, making them the world’s carbon sinks.
With that in mind, trees have been planted in Brazil to protect endangered species, in Madagascar to restore mangroves and dry deciduous forests, and in Cameroon to protect critically endangered gorillas. They have helped restore cloud forests in India and rebuild forests in previously cleared-out and burnt lands in Nepal.
If you look on a map, it looks like they are planting a green corridor that spans the globe.
TreeSisters has already had a huge impact on tropical reforestation, which is an incredible legacy in its own right, but that’s only half the story. They have a deeper, wider goal of empowering women to develop and celebrate feminine, nature-based leadership. Clare Dubois believes women are the missing piece in the solution to climate change and so 20% of donations help fund resources and experiences that nurture and develop the skills for women to become leaders within their communities.
“The money we receive from planting trees is promoting our families. We have improved our living standard… Women never surrender. Even if there’s money or not, the fact remains that we are here to plant trees for the benefit of all“.
Amastacia Mjoki Mjagi, Tree Planter, Mt. Kenya.
In time, Clare Dubois hopes that TreeSisters can encourage a fundamental identity shift, from a consumer species to a restorer species, and create a culture that respects and protects life.
The team at Greenhouse is delighted to be able to support the amazing work that the TreeSisters are doing. Conservation has always been close to our hearts and last year we helped support the Woodland Trust’s campaign to double Bristol’s canopy cover by 2050. We also support the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil which brings together stakeholders across the palm oil supply chain to drive market transformation.
To celebrate International Women’s Day, we would like to encourage female changemakers everywhere to come together and accelerate the replanting of tropical forests by supporting the TreeSisters mission.
