Tree For All hats have made it all the way to South America. Pupils taking part in a tree planting project in Santiago, Chile, are now wearing them.
The project, set up by an organisation called ‘Cultiva’, aims to involve young people in planting trees to help solve the city’s pollution problems.
The foothills of the Andean mountains near Santiago suffered systematic deforestation during the 20th century. Now every year, 47,000 tons of soil is lost through erosion, mainly because there are no longer any tree roots to hold the soil particles in place against the forces of weather, such as heavy rain. The soil converts into suspended dust and is now a major source of air pollution in Santiago. The problem is so serious, that hundreds of thousands of people, including children, have to be admitted to hospital each year with urgent breathing problems.
The Cultiva project is now tackling the situation head on, through inviting students from Santiago’s schools to help clean the city’s air by planting new trees on the hills and foothills. The project hopes this will slow the soil erosion significantly enough, to aid natural regeneration of trees in time.
Tree For All coordinator, Paul Bunton says: ‘We wanted to help support this project because we felt it had a really strong resonance with Tree For All, involving both young people and tree-planting.’
So far, the project has been enormously successful with over 67 schools participating since 2000. For each one of these, the project has been able to plant approximately one hectare of trees, which captures over nine tons of soil, or possible dust.
Many schools are now incorporating the activity into their annual curriculum. The schoolchildren learn about the importance of caring for the land at an early age and they can see visible results in the survival and health of the trees planted. They have already managed to elevate the tree survival rates from 25 to 90 per cent in all plantations.
Cultiva project leader, Guillermo Scallan, says: ‘We hope that by involving Santiago’s youth in solving this situation, it will awaken a social responsibility in everyone towards Santiago’s environmental issues.’
Cultiva is a non-profit organisation founded by a group of teachers, agriculturists and other professionals; and funded mainly through individual, company, local and international donations.
