The quarterly newsletter of Trees for the Future
Summer 2006 Report from Mali:
Vol. XIV, No. 2
Forest Gardens and Desert Apples
The critical role women play in both community development and environmental conservation could never be defined better than it is in Sanankoroba, Mali. They are demonstrating both the power to absolutely degrade the environment AND the power to turn deserts into forests. Women who are limited in their ability to generate income and determined to feed their children are quickly depleting the remaining pockets of tree cover; the sale of wood and charcoal gives them food security. A never-ending caravan of cars, pickup trucks, and buses carry the wood into Bamako to feed the city's need for fuel. Local NGOs are working feverishly in rural villages to engage women in something, anything, that gives them an alternative source of income: gardening, honey, shea butter, dried TREES’ Technician John Leary, while on a Farmer-to-Farmer assignment through fruit - the list goes on. The long list of objectives of OIC Intern’l and USAID, receives a tour of this lush forest garden by the Dwalala Women’s Group in Banamba, Mali, an extremely dry and degraded area. my trip entailed finding ways for poor women - living in what soon will be a desert - to like an impossible task, but we have been there, done increase food production, conserve water, combat that, and though we could never afford the t-shirt, we insect infestations, improve soil quality, and keep wells have accumulated 30 years of knowledge, as well as from drying up, all while generating income and pro- training materials, videos, and pictures, that show the tecting what remains of the environment. It sounds way. Page 1 Johnny Ipil-Seed News Vol. XIV, No. 2
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