It’s been a minute…
Since becoming preoccupied by fundraising for the iGiveTrees projects, I totally forgot about blogging. Sorry. Not sorry.
There’s been quite a lot going on to expand our reach and stay active in the #COP23, #COP24 and #COP25 events as a delegate in the Green Zone. (Note: be sure to listen to the audio of this post, as it’s hysterical to listen to the way#COP was translated :) )
Moving right along to our news, here’s a quick catch up before moving into current news from our Rainforest partners in Brazil, that will follow in the next post.
At #COP23 in Bonn I was honored to coordinate a side event to introduce the book Drawdown with a panel of speakers whose work had been featured in the book. And I created an environmental banner for people to sign, which is my passion far more than writing funding proposals to do the actual field work. But hey, it was worth it and the event created a good launch for this wonderful work. To be continued in the next post…
Moving forward to the iGiveTrees presence at #COP24 in Katowice, Poland, I once again brought a banner, while being honored to present a clip of the movie Kiss the Ground, featuring the organization’s founder, Stéphane Le Foll, as well as support the presentations of Rizoma to the consortium members.
Earlier that year, the 4p1000 team had come to San Francisco for the #Global Climate Action Summit, where we presented the Regeneration Banner with Paul Hawken.
At that time, I didn’t know that Paul’s newest book was soon to be “Regeneration — Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation.” iGiveTrees is honored to be mentioned in the Regeneration Nexus as Key Players in both categories of Tropical Forests and Agroforestry.
The best part of this event for me, was to have a group of women academics approach me afterward, being astounded by the fact that iGiveTrees projects had been launched by the actions of children who baked cookies to help me replant a rainforest. It was not something they ever imagined possible!
So with this backstory, I’m now in the process of fundraising to keep our field teams busy planting more trees through the upcoming 2022–2023 rainy season.
And with #COP27 about to occur in Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt, I am preparing a poster presentation for 4p1000, while feeling doubtful about the value of attending in person to participate. This year the UN venue is in a location that is both expensive to reach and to stay. As a result, there will be very little representation by grassroots organizations. I have credentials for two of us to participate through Regeneration International, but the funds (when we raise them) may be better invested in sinking carbon with new plantings.
So I’m not convinced that it’s worth the carbon emissions to go so far to make an appeal to scholars and politicians, to actually consider the needs of barefoot Brazilians who actually DO the work they speak about.
What do you think?
We now have a Brazilian team in two biomes: Mata Atlântica and Cerrado, who are eager to expand their reach. This is not a quick fix to our challenges. But it is effective because local people are reaching out to their neighboring communities to educate, encourage and support small projects to grow in scale.
If you’ve seen the movie “The Territory” recently released by National Geographic, you’ll see what they’re up against. It’s brutal, while far less so where we work outside of the Amazon. But it is the rural Brazilian communities that must be encouraged and supported to do things differently if we are to survive and even, hopefully, eventually, thrive.
Together.
