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The Reason: Planting Trees Mitigates Climate Change Melting glaciers in Greenland. Increasingly violent and frequent hurricanes in the Caribbean and along the U.S. Gulf Coast. A shrinking polar ice cap. The threat of rising global sea levels. There's diminishing doubt that the effects of climate change are already being felt, and indeed the earth's surface may be warming even faster than scientists initially anticipated. No longer just an abstract topic for debate among academics, environmentalists, industry lobbyists and public policy mavens, climate change calls for tangible action on the part of ordinary people everywhere. We can make a difference, but we need to act now. Tree planting is an easy first step to a more environmentally responsible lifestyle. Through its "Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign," the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is appealing to global citizens to achieve the goal of planting seven billion trees—roughly one tree for every living person on the planet. Mokugift has partnered with UNEP to make it easy for anyone concerned about climate change—even those lacking access to planting space—to take part in the Billion Tree Campaign. Planting trees in tropical latitudes is the most cost-efficient way to remove heat-trapping carbon gasses from the atmosphere. Trees absorb CO2, but that's not the only way they help to regulate climate. Tree cover also reflects solar radiation back into space and facilitates the evaporation of water into the atmosphere, increasing cloud formation. (Clouds help cool the planet by reflecting incoming solar radiation.) Fact: On average, each tree planted in the humid tropics absorbs 50 pounds of carbon dioxide every year for at least 40 years, amounting to one ton over the course of the tree's lifetime.
The Way: Plant a Tree for a Friend or Plant a Tree and Tell a Friend Planting a tree for a friend lets you do your part in the Billion Tree Campaign, while also inspiring the friend to join the campaign with you. Click Here to learn how mokugift tree gifts work. You can plant a tree for yourself. Mokugift makes it easy to inspire others to do the same. By sharing the inspiration, we can reach UNEP's collective goal of planting seven billion trees. Mokugift fosters environmental solidarity by letting everyone see how their actions inspire their friends, and friends of friends. Anyone can register on mokugift.com and receive a personal webpage, known as a Tree Island. Friends can plant trees for you, or you can plant trees for yourself or for friends. Watch as mokugift tracks how friends become inspired to join with you and UNEP in helping to fight climate change and restore tree cover to lands that have been degraded by logging, slash-and-burn farming and chemical-based agricultural methods. You receive recognition not only for the trees you've planted (either for yourself or as gifts for friends and associates) but also for those planted by your friends and their inspired friends (3 degrees). You can see the total number of people you've inspired and the total number of trees planted by them. These achievements are shown on your Tree Island page. To celebrate the friends that join you, for every 10 trees planted by people inspired by you (3 degrees of friends), you'll get a free tree. You can also see which friends you have inspired and their individual achievements. Mokugift also offers a convenient widget—an online icon that automatically tallies the total number of trees planted by you and by the people you've inspired. You can easily add this widget to your blog or your profile on a social network. Other ways to share the inspiration: adding your Tree Island URL to your email signature or disseminating the URL via Twitter.
How and Where: are my trees planted? Award-winning nonprofit organizations specializing in agroforestry projects—which restore depleted lands and boost the agricultural productivity and incomes of indigenous peoples in some of the poorest parts of the world—plant the actual trees purchased via mokugift. Mokugift trees are planted in 12 tropical countries: Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Burundi, Senegal, Zambia, India, Philippines and Haiti. Species include Cocoa, Coffee, Banana, Orange, Cedar, Teak, Mahogany, Oak, Acacia, Eucalyptus, Laurel and Leucaena. Academic research by Dr. Govindasamy Bala of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory shows that trees planted in tropical zones are most effective in mitigating climate change. His study covered the effects of carbon dioxide absorption, reflection of solar radiation and reflection of solar radiation from increased cloudiness. He also accounted for the warming effect of heat held by absorbed sunlight. "Our study shows that tropical forests are very beneficial to the climate because they take up carbon and increase cloudiness, which in turn helps cool the planet," explained Dr. Bala. "The further you move from the equator, though, these gains are eroded; and the team's modeling predicts that planting more trees in mid- and high-latitude locations could lead to a net warming of a few degrees by the year 2100."
To achieve the biggest bang for the tree-planting buck, mokugift has partnered with two nonprofit organizations widely recognized for their expertise in the field of agroforestry: Trees For The Future (TFTF) and Sustainable Harvest International (SHI). Based on an intimate knowledge of plants and their place in the ecosystem, agroforestry empowers communities to restore tree cover to lands that have been degraded by poor land-management practices. Agroforestry integrates agriculture, trees, people and animals in ways that restore ecological balance, while allowing farmers to make the best possible use of the resources they already possess. The ultimate goal is an environmentally and economically sustainable system of land use in which planting and properly nurturing trees helps to provide a lifetime of income and a legacy that can be proudly passed on to future generations. Mokugift has invested considerable time and effort researching agroforestry and prospective tree-planting partners, with the objective of ensuring accountability in the tree-planting system. We recognize that our success is contingent on the integrity of our partners and the effectiveness of their programs. We chose to partner with TFTF and SHI because, in addition to having built sterling reputations within the environmental community, both organizations share our fundamental belief that planting trees not only benefits the environment (by absorbing greenhouse gas emissions) but also can serve as a foundation for sustainable economic development for communities that have been adversely affected by poor land-management practices. To learn more about agroforestry, Click Here.
Tree planting is done in large volumes, and monitored by TFTF and SHI field representatives. The process starts with germination of seeds and the planting of seedlings. We don't plant adult trees because that doesn't benefit the environment; it only wastes fuel to change the location of a tree. When a customer purchases a mokugift tree for $1, a portion of that money goes to fund mokugift's operating costs and expansion. The portion that's sent to our tree-planting partners is enough to cover the cost of planting and caring for one tree. This is stipulated in our contractual arrangements with TFTF and SHI, which are among the very best managed environmental nonprofits. Both organizations are rated 4 out of 4 stars by Charity Navigator (the nonprofit equivalent of Consumer Reports).
"Only 10% of charities rated have received at least 3 consecutive 4-star evaluations, meaning that Sustainable Harvest International outperforms most charities in America in its efforts to operate in the most fiscally responsible way possible. This 'exceptional' designation differentiates SHI from its peers and demonstrates to the public it is worthy of their trust." ~ Trent Stamp, President of Charity Navigator Both Trees For The Future and Sustainable Harvest International fully support the efforts of mokugift. "The cultivation of trees is the cultivation of the good, the beautiful and the ennobling in man." ~ J. Sterling Morton
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