karatu tree nurseries

Introduction

Our primary carbon sequestration project is located in the Karatu area of Tanzania, which lies on the main overland safari route between Arusha and Serengeti, set against the slopes of the famous Ngorongoro Crater.

This is an extremely attractive area of undulating high-altitude farmland, a mix of larger rural estates and small subsistence ‘shamba’ farmsteads.

Starting during the British colonial era, much of this landscape has been denuded of its indigenous forest and multi-tiered agriculture, to make way for the broad open fields of conventional agriculture. This has proved disastrous in the long run, with terrible soil erosion, a drying out of the local micro-climate and dramatic drops in agricultural productivity.

Karatu Tree Nurseries is working with local farmers to help them to reinstate the traditional multi-tiered agriculture that represents a much more sustainable solution for the long term.

We do this by growing saplings, which we offer to farmers free of charge, supported by environmental education programs.

Since 2009 we have planted over 500,000 trees and transformed the immediate vicinity. We are now expanding the project to surrounding areas and, with the help of funding from carbon credits, are looking to greatly accelerate the program to have a major positive influence on the landscapes of Northern Tanzania.

Making it work

Getting things done in Africa is notoriously challenging. The continent works in unusual ways, it has a habit of soaking up time and obstructing forward progress, often in the nicest and most enjoyable ways possible.

If you want a sustainable operation in Africa, you cannot simply impose western work practises, you have to learn to work with rather than against the natural flow.

Our team members, led by Denis Lebouteux, have a long-established track record of reliable and effective delivery, often under the most trying of circumstances.

Our pioneering tree-planting scheme in the Ngorongoro area of Tanzania was founded in 2009 by Denis Lebouteux, a Frenchman who is a prime mover in MKSC, the the oldest safari company in the country. His operation is successful because its staff have, over many decades, managed to work intimately with local communities, far more so than most.

If you were to travel with Denis, you would be amazed at the warmth and respect with which he is greeted at every single village. Unlike most foreigners, he is not regarded with suspicion, but considered a friend and ally.

As Denis himself describes :

“I can’t claim to have dreamed up the way we plant trees, I simply observed what was needed amongst the local people and looked to provide a solution. That’s why it works, because the people trust us and we trust them. We want them to plant trees and they want trees to plant.”

Understanding people the way Denis does does is a gift. Making operations in Africa run as smoothly as he does is little short of a miracle.

Partnership with farmers

Our tree-planting projects work because they combine the best science with the most effective and practical ways of working in Africa.

What we do is, on the face of it, delightfully simple.

After selecting an area which we feel is suitable for tree planting, we contact the local community through our already long-established personal friendships. We then provide the funds to enable them to acquire a piece of land large enough for our tree nursery, to purchase and run a suitable vehicle and to employ usually three or four full-time members of staff who we can train and support.

As the nursery gets underway, we ensure that the word is fed out through the community that local villagers and farmers are welcome to visit and join our educational sessions, where we teach them about the environment and about the benefits of growing their crops below shade trees.

Once the saplings start to mature, we invite these local people to come to the nursery and collect up to twenty trees of various species, free of charge, to take home and plant on their land.

These trees help to alleviate poverty by increasing farm yields and providing additional cash crops.

From a carbon sequestration point of view, the most wonderful thing about this way of working is the very high levels of success that we experience in turning saplings into mature trees. If these farmers are willing to walk or cycle for an hour or more to get to the nursery, then you can bet that they will be committed to ensuring that their trees reach maturity.

More from Denis :

“It is a wonderful, informal social contract, exactly the kind of thing that works effectively in Africa. No large and impersonal outside intervention, just an honourable understated deal between villagers from the same intimate community.”

Our pioneering first project in Karatu has proved the efficacy of this approach, having distributed over 500,000 trees into the local community and having a transformative effect on the local landscapes.

We are presently engaged in the process of setting up more nurseries in other communities, each with an effective radius of around 5 km (the maximum distance that we could reasonably expect a farmer to walk or cycle to pay us a visit) and each with a production capacity of around 30,000-50,000 saplings per year.

We believe that there is the potential for many dozens of such nurseries in northern Tanzania alone, hundreds if not thousands when we consider other viable countries including Kenya, Malawi and Zambia. If we could raise sufficient funds through selling carbon credits, we could potentially be planting tens of millions of trees every year.

Progress and ambition

When we started back in 2009, our tree planting ambitions were modest. It was a small sideline, a voluntary project that we wanted to start because we thought it was the right thing to do.

In the first ten years we planted just under half a million trees. That’s about 130 saplings per day, not a vast amount, but certainly not insignificant.

Since realising that we could fund expansion through selling carbon credits, we are now working on scaling up to plant millions of trees each and every year.

Having proved the replicability of our projects on the ground, the key now is to attract enough partners to provide the necessary finance.

We invite you to join us, neutralising your carbon footprint, whilst helping us to plant trees and lift lovely local people out of rural poverty.

That’s what we call really making a difference.

Next article

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Located on the remote island of Mafia in Tanzania, this coral planting project may not deliver the same high rates of carbon sequestration, but it is critical for marine conservation along this stunningly beautiful coastline.