Multicultural Partners Planting Trees in Africa

On January 20, the High Atlas Foundation hosted a significant event in the Amerzguane municipality, located in the Ouarzazate province.

The Agloula cooperative members and other farmers from the village warmly welcomed the High Atlas Foundation team (HAF).

This village community, hurt by the 2023 earthquake, had previously benefited from HAF’s water infrastructure projects, which included the installation of solar panels and the construction of a well, funded by Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy.

The National Tree Planting Day reflects HAF’s commitment to environmental sustainability and community development. During this event, various types of trees—such as olive, almond, and pomegranate—are planted in collaboration with local communities, schools, and farmers.

The goal is to inspire planting, promote biodiversity, support livelihoods in rural areas, and combat desertification, all while emphasizing community management to ensure the sustainability of the project.

The event began with a presentation by Youssef Tahiri, tree monitoring officer, who discussed HAF’s tree-planting initiatives.

He explained the variety of tree species distributed to farmers, highlighting the importance of diversifying beyond the traditional tree types they had relied on. This change encourages greater biodiversity and a healthier environment.

Youssef also introduced the carbon offset program, which allows farmers to contribute to reducing global carbon emissions while benefiting from sustainable farming practices.

This innovative program not only helps combat climate change but also provides farmers with additional income opportunities by selling carbon credits.

Through improved soil management, reforestation, and the adoption of eco-friendly farming techniques, the program empowers farmers to enhance their productivity while simultaneously protecting the environment.

By fostering a connection between environmental sustainability and economic growth, Youssef's initiative creates a win-win situation for both the farmers and the planet.

Following the workshop, the tree-planting activity commenced. The farmers had already prepared by digging holes in which to plant the trees, including olives, pomegranates, and forest trees.

Everyone gathered together to plant the saplings. Both Youssef and Mohammed, tree planting program coordinator, provided guidance on the correct planting techniques.

While the farmers were already familiar with many of the methods, a few additional details were shared, such as the ideal depth for the hole and how to properly position the sapling to ensure it receives adequate water and air for growth.

The importance of regular irrigation was also emphasized to ensure the trees' long-term health.

As we plant these trees, we honor the memory of Jamie. Jamie was a passionate global development advocate who dedicated her life to community empowerment and sustainability.

She served in Morocco with the Peace Corps and later conducted impactful research on water scarcity and sustainable agriculture.

As a Fulbright researcher, Jamie worked closely with farmers and women’s cooperatives to preserve agricultural traditions.

Jamie passed away on November 5th, 2024. In her honor, the Fico family and the High Atlas Foundation launched the water infrastructure and tree planting project in Amerzguane commune , reflecting her vision for a sustainable future.

Though Jamie is no longer with us, her spirit lives on through the countless lives they touched and the work she left behind.

On this tree planting day, We celebrate Jamie’s legacy, and we pledge to carry forward her mission of service, compassion, and environmental stewardship.

These trees, and many others, stand as a testament to the life Jamie lived—a life of love, purpose, and profound impact!

The inspiration wasn’t limited to just this village; HAF staff were spread across various regions of Morocco, planting trees together on the same day.

With the involvement of local communities, students, and others, the event served as a memorable reminder of the importance of this initiative and our collective responsibility in caring for the environment.

On the 12th of December 2024, I set out with four colleagues of the High Atlas Foundation (HAF) to meet with members of the rural community of Tafza (Al Haouz province, Marrakesh region), located in the mountain range that bore the horrendous epicenter of the September 2023 earthquake.

Unlike the countless visits that members of our Moroccan and US non-profit organization have made to many hundreds of village communities in this area since that natural disaster, this recent December visit was of a different, yet still humanly essential, restoration purpose.

The president of the Moroccan Jewish community in Marrakesh, Jacky Kadoch, followed by the authorization of the provincial governing authorities, had asked that we perform a sacred duty at the Tafza Jewish cemetery.

Our purpose that day was to gather and bury again the human bone remains that have emerged from the ground from the years of terrible erosion, likely exacerbated by the previous year’s earthquake.

The High Atlas Foundation’s re-tombing of the beloved departed, upon request, is an honoured service that we perform with urgency. HAF implements community development projects based on the local people’s collective will for initiatives that meet their individual and shared priority needs.

Our best expertise is in facilitating those introspective conversations that result in the peoples’—the beneficiaries’—action plan for the development they want most of all.

For us, and as is underscored by global experience, projects endure and meet the people’s priority goals of their lives because of the communities’ dedication in carrying them out.

It is therefore vital that the re-tombing be done together with the people in closest proximity to the historic mountain cemetery since doing so also holds importance for them.

The Sunni Muslim Kingdom of Morocco’s caretaking of Jewish cemeteries in all parts of the nation comes as naturally as the peoples’ identity itself may come.

It requires no explanation, no persuasion, only the confirmation of a day and a time when men of all ages gather to restore what the collective community sees as part of their own indelible and revered past.

When we arrived that morning, roughly 30 people were already gathered with their tools to traverse the 1,200-square-meter cemetery, pick up every observed bone, place them in a cloth sack or covering (as per Moroccan Jewish and Muslim traditions), and re-bury them in a new grave that Tafza residents had dug, lined with brick, and built to endure for the next millennia.

As we walked together with Tafza people in all parts of the cemetery with our eyes to the ground, we also spoke about the work needed to redress and end the erosion of this degrading mountain slope.

We identified the critical points at which to add and level soil and plant non-bearing fruit trees in a manner allowable by Jewish custom.

We spoke about the three Jewish village communities who left the area several generations ago to which this circa 1,000-year-old cemetery belonged.

We went to the unmarked burial site of a revered rabbi, whose name this adult generation of Tafza people no longer recall. Most local oracles of knowledge about this cemetery, great grandparents of today’s farming families, are no longer alive. 

We addressed the exigency of bone reburial, but an enormity of restoration work remains. Even with the highly commendable national initiative of the Moroccan Jewish Community led by Serge Berdugo with financial backing of the Moroccan government following Royal instructions that restored 167 Jewish cemeteries, a large number still require attention. 

The Moroccan government representatives’ presence that morning was warm, helpful, and brotherly. It felt as if all together we had created that day a subcommunity of Moroccan protectors of the past and future.

It is a Moroccan Jewish custom at the anniversary of the passing of their righteous ones (the occasion referred to as a Moussem) to eat together and enjoy a shared moment of bounty.

On that December day, it was not an anniversary of anyone passing, though it might have been. But we did break bread, dipped it in local raw honey and olive oil, drank tea made with local herbs, and shared a moment atop infinite previous moments of Moroccan Muslim and Jewish people from government, civil society, and small businesses, from city and rural places, completing something that was calling to be done.

We brought before all of our eyes the miracles and blessings of Morocco that find their way into our daily affairs. It explains for me, as well as I have been able, that to serve in Morocco is to never let go.