Plant Organic Fruit Trees with African Farmers

We are now at the conclusion of the 2016 planting season and we are thrilled to report that during the last 12 weeks the High Atlas Foundation and community and civil partners planted approximately 900,000 seeds. To put this amount into perspective, it took us eleven years -from 2003-2014 - to plant our first million seeds and saplings and we have nearly planted that same amount in as many weeks. Furthermore, to get a sense of the scope of this number of trees, there are 26,000 trees, for example, in New York city’s Central Park. In total, the seeds and saplings were planted in 12 community managed nurseries in 5 different provinces and the contribution of land was provided by local cooperatives, the High Commission of Waters and Forests, the Jewish Community of Morocco, municipalities, schools, and private individuals.

 This now makes seven years in a row where HAF and its partners planted a greater number of trees than during the year prior. However, this year represents the largest increase from the previous year - we planted three times more than during the 2015 season. We also planted with a larger number of schools than we ever have in the past. This includes 113 schools in 10 provinces of Morocco. In addition to fruit trees, medicinal aromatic plants were planted by the women’s cooperative of Ourika Valley, which is a major opportunity for them since those flowers are in demand by our partner YSL Beaute.

Even as we feel grateful for these accomplishments, there are as many nurseries for which we have partnership agreements but not the funding for them to be realized. These potential nurseries include with at-risk youth who have been detained for minor crimes, on lands contributed by schools in order for those nurseries to serve their communities and province, and in an area so that we may cultivate varieties of figs that are indigenous and threatened.

In conclusion, we sincerely look forward to the 2017 planting season for which we are now preparing and we hope that it will include opportunities to help corporations achieve carbon balance, to expand to new areas, to serve people with significant needs, to benefit women and youth who are so eager to achieve their dreams if given the resources to catalyze the process, and to areas long neglected or marginalized that would most welcome participatory planning and organic agriculture so that they may achieve the future they want.