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Dear Adopt An Acre Contributor,
You helped make a tremendous lasting legacy for future generations and our planet. Thank you!
Your generous donations to the Adopt an Acre® program during our 2006 and 2007 season resulted in the adoption and preservation of more than 24,000 acres in East Africa's Rift Valley.
Through your support of the Adopt an Acre program, The Nature Conservancy, in partnership with like-minded organizations such as the Green Belt Movement and the Jane Goodall Institute, is working with local communities to protect and restore the Forests of the Rift Valley—a landscape of sweeping savannahs, towering volcanoes and lush tropical forests. These ancient forests harbor monkeys, chimpanzees, elephants and leopards, while also supplying drinking water to millions of Africans.
In fact, no terrestrial ecosystem delivers more economic and ecological services than forests. They deliver such vital services as clean water, timber, fuel and food directly to rural communities. More than 90 percent of all water comes from forested mountains and 70 percent of electrical power generation is derived from rivers that flow from these forests. The benefits of healthy forests and the costs of forest degradation are felt at all levels—from individuals through local communities, and at national, regional and global scales.
Unfortunately, expanding urban areas, increasing agricultural development and illegal logging threaten the Rift Valley’s tropical forests. At the turn of the 20th century, 30 percent of Kenya was covered in natural forests — today the country’s forest cover is at slightly less than 2 percent.
It is estimated by the United Nations that Kenya needs to have at least 10 percent forest cover to provide all the vital services which these important and fragile ecosystems supply.
To increase forest cover from 2 percent to 10 percent requires reforesting about 50,000 km2, or 5 million hectares, of land. Each hectare supports about 1,000 trees. To achieve this will require capacity and investment about one hundred times greater than current levels.
Supported by the Adopt an Acre program, the Conservancy is helping the Green Belt Movement to plant 5 billion trees in Kenya over the next 50 years. In Tanzania, the Conservancy is working with the Jane Goodall Institute on reforestation efforts in and around two important sites—Gombe Stream National Park and Mahale Mountains National Park. So far, the Jane Goodall Institute has helped plant about 750,000 trees in 32 villages.
Thank you again for supporting the Adopt an Acre program in East Africa and for all you do to help save the Earth’s last great places.
Sincerely,
David Banks
Director
Africa Program
Click here to learn more about our expanding work in Africa. You can also learn about our 2007-2008 Adopt an Acre location on the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica.
Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Photographer/Org (prickly pear cactus); Photo © Photographer/Org (cheetah).
