Plant! Talking trees...

BRDC is one of four partners in Mbale delivering Size of Wales' Ten Million Trees Project. Starting in 2010 with an initial target to plant one million trees, the project has now planted six million and hopes to reach its goal in 2020. If any of you have received a Plant! certificate for any children born or adopted in Wales since 2008, chances are their tree in Uganda is here! 

Sitting along the equator, Uganda is now seeing many direct effects of climate change. Planting trees is an important activity helping to reduce soil erosion that can lead to landslides and addressing poverty through providing sustainable sources of income, food and fuel.

Seedling Beds

Specifically BRDC oversees 12 tree nurseries, managing one directly on site, with others set up within community groups. The tree planting team - Jonathan, Godfrey and Emily - work with communities to find suitable areas of land to set up nurseries, advise what seedlings to grow and advise farmers on what should be planted where. The team also follow up on the seedlings to see how many were actually planted and if the desired outcomes are being met. 

Farmers are given the seedlings to plant for free however, the team encourage uses of different trees to give more sustainable options to look after their land and families. In planting agro-forestry areas, the taller trees provide shade for the shorter fast growing fruit trees and agricultural plants, both of which provide sources of income and alternative sources of fuel to chopping down the tall trees - and so the cycle and need to plant more trees in the first place! 

After getting the overview, it was off to see the action - I know trees grow very slowly, but there is still a lot of day to day work to get that to happen!

We headed out towards Manafwa District, South East of Mbale, to visit one of the other nurseries run by a community group. When we arrived Alice, a 70 year old grandmother greeted us and took us into her home to share some hot milk and sandwiches, which was most welcome after our morning mishap (car broke down en route)! As I've said, Ugandan's are so welcoming and friendly, in stark contrast to some of the situations we see at home today, it costs nothing to be polite.

Ready for sharing

After the welcome break it was off just down the hill to meet her husband Alex at nursery, Alex is retired from the military so is very proud of working for his community in his later years after his service.

The basic process is - plant the seeds, let them germinate while making up small potting bags. Once the seeds have sprouted, plant them in the bags and let them grow. Once they have reached small plants then they are handed out to farmers. Time to get my hands dirty!

Potting the seeds

Planting my avocado tree