Good Gifts Catalog Funds Major Mpingo Planting Projects

In this newsletter we will give an extensive report on mpingo initiatives that have been started because of contributions from the Good Gifts Catalog, a UK-based charity that offers opportunities for gift giving on behalf of organizations promoting social and environmental projects around the world.

Because of the ABCP infrastructure that already exists, in terms of our long-time established Moshi Mpingo Plot from which we can produce tens of thousands of seedlings in one year, we have been able to supply mpingo seedlings for multiple new initiatives in schools and villages in northern Tanzania. As always, our yearly contributors and ongoing funding from the Cottonwood Foundation has allowed us to continually expand and update work at the plot. Our two full-time workers, Joseph Simon and Raphael James, are busy year-round with growing seedlings for our various projects. In addition, the Chuwa home nursery on Mt. Kilimanjaro also supplies trees for our needs.

To date we have planted over 600,000 mpingo seedlings and close to 1 million other indigenous tree seedlings in northern Tanzania.

For the Good Gifts initiative, we have extended our planting areas into new locations and discuss here the people and places involved. Besides accomplishing the task of planting trees, the money paid to the workers on our projects is helping them purchase needed items and to educate their children. 
(continued on pg. 2, see Good Gifts)

He who plants a tree
Plants a hope.
Lucy Larcom,
from “Plant a Tree”

Counterclockwise from the top left, this photo montage illustrates the process of the work of the African Blackwood Conservation Project. The Moshi Mpingo Plot at Mijongweni has been funded by gifts from our contributors and the Cottonwood Foundation, and its nursery is now capable of producing seeds from trees planted in the mid-1990’s. The top photo shows seed pods growing on our nursery trees, which, when mature, are harvested and dried. Nursery attendant, Joseph Simon, is next shown planting seeds in a seedbed, followed by emerging mpingo sprouts 21 days later. The next photo shows Sebastian Chuwa, ABCP Tanzania Coordinator, with Joseph, holding a nursery seedling potted into economical planting pots made from rolls of polythene tubing filled with soil. Bottom right photo shows our mature trees, now providing shade for seedlings as they are cared for during their first 18 months of life. Finally, Sebastian shows a 5’ tall mpingo sapling planted at the Good Gifts Plot at Makuyuni.

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