By providing families and farmers with the tools they need, TREES helps grow thriving communities in Africa.

Imagine walking through a lush forest, the air cool and fresh around you, sunlight filtering through a canopy of green leaves. Each tree around you stands as a testament to nature’s resilience and beauty.

Now, multiply that feeling by millions. That’s exactly what Trees for the Future (TREES), supported by Life's Abundance, is working towards with their ambitious reforestation projects across Africa. By planting millions of trees, they’re transforming barren lands into vibrant forests.

Think of their work as creating massive "lungs" for the Earth that:

• absorb carbon
• enrich soil
• restore biodiversity
• strengthen communities

Here’s the big news: This incredible effort has recently been recognized globally! The United Nations (UN) has honored TREES as a World Restoration Flagship. Only seven projects were picked this year, and their ‘Forest Garden Approach’ was one of them.

This prestigious title underscores TREES' role as a key player in achieving the UN’s 2030 environmental goals. And with Life’s Abundance’s support, they’re proving that when we give back to the earth, it gives back to us in countless ways.

If you’ve ever lost yourself in a forest's magic, you’ll understand why this is such a big deal. Ready to see how these forests are flourishing? Let’s explore how innovative gardening and passionate people are making our world greener—one tree at a time!

TREES innovative ‘Forest Garden’ approach turns barren lands into thriving forests.

What’s TREES All About?

TREES is like a superhero team for the environment. They teach farmers all over the world how to grow forests that are good for the earth and good for people too. Here’s what makes them super special:

• They plant lots of trees. They’re leaders in creating something called the ‘Forest Garden’, where every tree and plant has a special job that helps all the others.
• They help families. By teaching farmers how to grow these awesome gardens and giving them seedlings, they help families eat better, make money, and live healthier lives.

You might wonder why this matters to you. Well, every time you purchase a Life’s Abundance skin care product, you’re helping plant more trees and gardens. You’re making the air cleaner and the soil healthier while empowering families to grow food to eat. You become a hero for the planet, too!

We’re super excited to celebrate this big win with you. If you want to learn more cool stuff about TREES and all the good they’re doing, just click here. It’s full of fun facts and other ways you can get involved.

Thanks for being awesome and caring about our planet. High five to you! Let’s keep making the world a greener, happier place together.

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As far as problems go, they don't come much larger than the threats posed by global climate change. And yet, instead of engaging in a meaningful debate about the best solution to the problem, we seem to be stuck in a cycle where many remain resistant to the mere idea of tackling the issues we face. Why is it that? Sociologists have an answer to this conundrum that makes perfect sense. Because the problem is so monumental, and the potential devastation too frightening, it almost seems inevitable, as something impossible to fix. But, what if the solution is much simpler than we're expecting? Not only simple but completely doable? And, icing on the cake, what if the fix was something that pretty much everyone views as positive?

In mid-February, a Swiss researcher named Thomas Crowther presented his research findings at the Science Transcending Boundaries Conference, this year's Annual Meeting of the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science). Until very recently, the prevailing wisdom was that a widescale adoption of wind turbines and a mass conversion of diets from meat-eating to vegetarian would have the greatest impacts on the planet's environment. But after Dr. Crowther presented the results of his amazing research project, we now know that a worldwide tree-planting "spree" would have the greatest impact on our planet's environment. That's right, simply by increasing the number of trees worldwide from three trillion to four trillion, we could cancel out more than a decade of greenhouse emissions right away! According to Crowther, trees should now be viewed as “our most powerful weapon in the fight against climate change."

Could restoring the health of our planet be as simple as planting one trillion trees? The longer answer is that a combination of ending destructive farming practices and replenishing our planet's biodiversity through forestation really could be the turning point in our ecological crisis. In a very real sense, planting seedling trees is the first step in a proactive solution to most of our climate problems. On the micro-level, we can help lift people out of poverty, while on the macro-level, we could make great strides towards reversing the proliferation of carbon in the atmosphere.

As part of our Evergreen commitment (Life’s Abundance has been certified as an Evergreen company by the Tugboat Institute), we make decisions based not just on profit, but on long-term sustainability and on being a good steward of the environment. When we launched our line of premium skin-care products, we wanted to do something above and beyond our typical commitment to creating a better world. A reflection of our natural philosophy, we entered into a partnership with Trees for the Future. Every time a customer purchases one of our skin-care products, we make a corresponding commitment to further fund this green initiative by planting a tree.

Trees for the Future (TREES) is an international development non-profit that meets a triple bottom line through their tree-planting mission: poverty alleviation, hunger eradication and healing the environment. In addition to planting trees, they train farmers to manage "forest gardens" in order to sustainably feed their families and raise their incomes by as much as four times! And because they utilize sophisticated algorithms and tracking software, our trees are planted are used in areas where they can have the greatest impact. At present, they have trained at-risk peoples in six countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, including Cameroon, Guinea, Kenya, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda. Since they were founded in 1989, TREES has planted over 150 million trees!

According to John Leary, executive director of TREES, "Our planet loses 50 soccer fields worth of trees every minute, and much of this deforestation is occurring in the developing tropics where hundreds of millions of families depend on trees for their survival. Once the trees are cleared, most subsistence farmers in the developing world use destructive farming techniques – including both slash-and-burn and modern agriculture – that inhibit the growth of anything but one or a few temporary crops." Leary's belief is that restoring agricultural lands with a diverse combination of trees and crops is the answer to a whole host of pressing global problems, including: desertification; diminishing access to potable water; hunger and poverty; forced migrations; and, of course, climate change itself.

As a corporate sponsor, you can visit our very own TREES web page to view our current count of tree seedlings planted to date. So far, we've planted an amazing 46,000 trees! To put our participation in perspective, if every registered business in the US were to plant the same number of trees, the trillion number goal would be met with an extra 288 billion on top of it!

The thing that stands out for most people is the idea of planting trees is appealing. Pretty much everyone who has ever planted a tree thinks of it as a positive experience. Anyone can do it. They improve urban environments. They absorb carbon dioxide and generate oxygen. As far as ecosystems go, planting more trees is always a good thing.

Best of all, it would appear people are enthusiastic about Crowther's bold proposal. The UN has already changed the name of their tree-planting initiative to the Trillion Tree Campaign!

So, if you've ever felt like you can't make a difference, now you know you can! We encourage all our readers to visit trees.org and trilliontreecampaign.org and find out more about these initiatives. And, if you're looking for something a little more local, make planting tree seedlings into a regular fun family outing.

For more on the science and the solution, check out these informative links!

^{https://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2019/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/23744}

^{https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/forests-climate-change-co2-greenhouse-gases-trillion-trees-global-warming-a8782071.html}

^{https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-02/ez-pcc021119.php}

^{https://www.wearesalt.org/stopping-the-sixth-extinction-habitat-creation/}

^{https://futurism.com/planting-trillions-trees-cancel-co2-emissions/}

^{http://trees.org/app/uploads/2018/03/One-Shot-Meltwater-Email-PR.pdf}