Current Trees4Good Jatropha Projects

How Jatropha can protect and preserve rainforest in Borneo (click here for more details) The bio-fuels market is commonly perceived as a threat to the environment and this is potentially true. However the problem is not inherent in bio-fuels it is in the crops used to produce them – notably palm oil, rapeseed, soy and other food crops. The problem arises when land that is currently rainforest or that could be used for food is used for fuel crops. Forested areas are being torn down to make way for palm oil plantations but this is totally unnecessary. Jatropha is part of the answer. Many environmental groups campaign for an end to the logging but offer no solution to the reason for the logging in the first place. The reason is simple – poverty. Many local people have no other source of income so will do whatever they have to in order to survive. For many the answer is to log trees, even when it is illegal. Trees4Good gives the locals another option - the ability to make a living from farming Jatropha. It is an opportunity that hundreds have taken, and thousands more want to take. You can help them to take part and change their lives by sponsoring tree planting in Borneo with Trees4Good. The Trees4Good Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme is one of the leading CSR programs globally, and it is easy to join and become a partner.

De-forestation has taken place here on a massive scale as the image (above, right) shows. Trees4Good aims to help stop the de-forestation (which often occurs through no employment) by providing jobs for locals cultivating Jatropha. They no longer need to chop down rainforest to survive, they can make their living from farming Jatropha.

Click here to see a video of the area that Trees4Good operates in. Help us preserve the rainforest, help us alleviate poverty and help us start to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. All via planting trees.

Borneo was once covered with dense rainforests. With swampy coastal areas fringed with mangrove forests and a mountainous interior, much of the terrain was virtually impassable and unexplored. Head-hunters ruled the remote parts of the island until a century ago. In the 1980’s and 90’s Borneo underwent a remarkable transition. Its forests were levelled at a rate unparalleled in human history. The wood from the island’s rainforests went to countries such as Japan and the United States in the form of paper pulp, chopsticks and garden furniture. Initially the timber was taken from the Malaysian part of the island – the northern states of Sabah and Sarawak.

More recently, the primary source of tropical timber has started coming from the forests in the southern part of Borneo, the Indonesian area called Kalimantan. Today the forested areas of Borneo are a shadow of what they once were. Trees4Good is helping protect that forest by showing locals how they can benefit from the biodfuels boom by using only their redundant land.

India - starting 2009

Eradication of poverty in India can only be a long-term goal. Poverty alleviation is expected to make better progress in the next 50 years than in the past, as a trickle-down effect of the growing middle class. Increasing stress on education, reservation of seats in government jobs and the increasing empowerment of women and the economically weaker sections of society, are also expected to contribute to the alleviation of poverty