A Canadian-based organisation, working with a team of African citizens, has embarked on a mission to plant 50 billion trees across Africa and beyond.
Tfortrees, a politically independent organisation that promotes sustainable living, and is actively involved in creating sustainable environmental protection solutions, realizing innovative climate protection projects and promoting the use of renewable energy sources, came up with the initiative, in order to reduce the negative impacts humans have had on the environment.
Mitigating Climate Change and Abject Poverty
AbdulAziz Quraishi, the organisation’s chairman and Chief Executive Officer, says the project will not only help mitigate Global Warming and Climate change, but also abject poverty in the process, as they plan to create about 5 million direct jobs and 50 million indirect jobs, which will change the socio-economic fabric of the continent.
Workers will be offered houses, their children’s education with schools and basic health care, thereby creating sustainability for future generations.
“As you may be aware, billions of dollars or Euros go to help Africa, with never reaching the most deserving. Planting trees, anyone can do, but to build a sustainable environment that will help future generations to come is what’s needed in Africa,” says Quraishi.
“Imagine each unskilled worker making above average daily income of $15 times 300 days times 5 Million $22.5 billion and now you multiply this number with 50 Million, now you are taking $100’s of billions just in wages.
Things get more interesting when we offer these workers, homes to live in, their children’s education with schools and basic health care, now you are talking sustainability for generations to come,” he adds.
Laying the groundwork
Quraishi further tells Africa Feeds that his organisation has already acquired 40 million acres of land under contract and more is being offered by many nations in Africa and beyond, adding that this has potential to reduce Africa’s reliance on hand-outs from developed nations, as well as minimise the mass exodus taking place in Europe.
“This can truly be a trillion dollars benefit to the continent of Africa, where it doesn’t have to rely on handouts from the developed nations of the western world,” he claims.
One of the means of raising required capital for the project, by the organisation, is through selling T-shirts, says Quraishi, adding that for every T-shirt they sell, they plant one tree:
“We get these shirts made in Bangladeshi for around $5 each and we sell it for $20, the profit from this goes to our mission to plant 50 billion trees. My team is mainly of African citizens and they all want to see a change for the better, since the politicians have been totally complacent in their approach to the rampant abject poverty. ”
High rates of deforestation
Africa is one of the parts of the world that are most affected by high rates of deforestation. Out of the roughly 420 million hectares of land that the United Nations estimates to have been robbed between 1990 and 2020, by deforestation, most of it is in Africa and Southern America.
The global total forest area stands at some 4.06 billion hectares but continues to decrease, according to the latest Global Forest Resources Assessment report (FRA 2020), which aims to turn the tide on deforestation, or the conversion of forest to other uses such as Agriculture.
The UN further calls for urgent action to safeguard the biodiversity of the world’s forests, amidst alarming rates of deforestation and land degradation.
Through such tree-planting projects, Tfortrees apparently wants to play a part in mitigating the effects of such environment issues as climate change, as their mission states:
“The climate change or global warming challenge the world faces today presents significant opportunities to answer those problems. Responding to these challenges requires scientific, political and social efforts on a global scale. Every individual on this planet we call home has a responsibility and inaction is no longer an option.”
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Source: Africafeeds.com
