What a wonderful Gift or Donation! This entire donation will go directly to Sustainable Harvest International. These trees help restore the Central American tropical rainforest. They also provide food, alleviate poverty by restoring ecological stability, and help local farmers reverse rainforest destruction with sustainable land-use practices. The conservation of our rainforests provide us with incredible health and medical resources, food, clean air, climate, and water, and helps preserve the lives and habitats of over 1/2 the worlds plant and animal species. Just let us know in the Comments Section of the checkout process whether you would prefer a Gift Certificate (also indicate persons name) or Donation Certificate. It will be e-mailed to you within 24 hours. For free shipping on this item, please enter the code "gift" on the 2nd page of check out under coupon code.

Statement of Need:

Critical to the ecological health of the planet, tropical forests regulate climate and provide habitat for over half of the world's plant and animal species. Loss of tropical forests causes carbon dioxide sequestration to break down, resulting in global climate change. We are losing 7 species, forever, each day due to extinction. Species extinctions due to habitat loss decrease biodiversity, limiting our sources for future medications and other important resources. The local human population also depends upon forests' plants, animals, and watersheds for their survival. With these forests rapidly turning into wastelands, local people are at risk of losing their way of life forever.

Central America has lost more than half of its tropical forest cover since 1947. Sustainable Harvest International addresses both the global and local dimensions with a unique program that reverses the environmental and economic consequences of tropical deforestation in Central America.

In Central America, slash-and-burn farming is the main form of cultivation. When the population was small and land distributed more equitably, slash-and-burn farming was effective and even sustainable. Farmers could cut down and burn a small patch in a vast forest to farm for a few years. The cleared land was then left fallow for decades before being farmed again. Population has surged since the 1950's and the overcrowding forces farmers to return to the same land after only a few years. Without time to recuperate and without surrounding forest to protect the cleared patch, the soils, which are very susceptible to erosion, wash away as the tropical rain season is often more than five months every year. Over time, this tropical land becomes a virtual desert. Tropical deforestation leads to unpredictable weather patterns, including extremes of drought and flooding. Runoff from heavy rains causes siltation of rivers, streams, and offshore reefs. The loss of tree cover and absorbent soils causes drastic declines in biodiversity and diminished groundwater supplies to feed springs and rivers.

Impoverished farmers, with little education and practically no financial resources, know only slash-and-burn farming to grow the food crops that will keep their families and communities from starving. When land becomes degraded from repeated burning, farmers often turn to expensive, dangerous chemicals in a last ditch effort to continue to provide food. The disastrous results include debt, eroded soils, poisoned or dried up water resources, malnutrition and no income. Without other options, many families are forced to leave their land for another area of rainforest to start the cycle over again. Many farmers move to a city, most often illegally, to the US where their lack of education and city experience renders them susceptible to exploitation in sweatshops and other unjust workplaces.

Sustainable Harvest International works with Central American farmers to break this vicious cycle. Without the introduction of sustainable technologies, forests will continue to disapper and more of Central America will become degraded. Fortunately, however, low cost feasible alternatives to shifting cultivation exist, and farmers are desperate to learn them. With Sustainable Harvest International, participants learn to turn the tide of tropical forest destruction and poverty that has plagued Central America for so long.

Organization Information:

Sustainable Harvest International (SHI) is building a global network of local partners working towards environmental, economic, and social sustainability. SHI facilitates long-term collaboration among trained local agricultural staff, farmers, and communities to implement sustainable land-use practices that alleviate poverty by restoring ecological stability. This Non Profit Organization is rated Four Stars through Charity Navigator (the highest rating).

Founded in 1977 by Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Florence Reed, Sustainable Harvest International addresses the tropical deforestation crisis in Central America by providing farmers with sustainable alternatives to slash-and-burn agriculture. With SHI's integrated approach to sustainable rural development, poor farmers adopt environmentally, culturally, and economically sustainable land-use techniques that stop rainforest destruction while improving their standard of living. Planting trees is an integral part of the SHI approach.

SHI is entering its 10th year in a healthy position. Its programs are experiencing tremendous growth in popularity and its financial and organizational reputation is first class. Charity Navigator has reviewed and rated SHI in its highest category of non-profit operations giving it four stars. SHI has established more than 1,000 nurseries in Central America and has planted almost 2 million trees. Significantly, the 'retention rate' (survival rate) for the trees averages 86%. This is important as the extensionists track results and do not count seeds handed out as trees planted. There is a significant difference.

Thanks for your help and donation! The number of trees planted is only an estimate, and your donation goes where it is needed most (we hope that's ok with you of course!). Sustainable Harvest International works with hundreds of families in dozens of communities. The suggested gift amounts above symbolically represent their work and what it really costs to carry out that work. Your donation will be combined with others to do as much good as possible - to help people and restore the environment. Approximately $1.00 of this amount goes towards the CC processing fees that we are charged by our CC company.