The story of Don Cheyo

We bring you from time to time stories and updates from our great planting partners, and today we have a mini-documentary about Honduran farmer Don Cheyo, who grows organic crops and lives sustainably thanks to help from our planting partner, Sustainable Harvest International (SHI).

SHI works in developing countries in Central America - Nicaragua, Honduras, Belize, Panama. Central America has lost more than half of its rainforests in the last 50 years, contributing to mass extinctions and global warming. Rainforest destruction also wreaks havoc on local populations who depend on the rainforest for their survival.

SHI helps many farmers like Don Cheyo in nearly 100 struggling communities across Central America to reverse rainforest destruction with sustainable land-use practices that allow them to take control of their environmental and economic destinies. SHI is involved in many activities - from trees planting and restoration and preservation of degraded land to educational programs and community loan funds.

Here are some of SHI's achievements within 11 years of operations:

-Planted more than 2,000,000 trees.
- Converted 6,000 acres to sustainable uses, thereby saving 30,000 acres from slash-and-burn destruction.
- Improved nutrition through the establishment of more than 200 organic vegetable gardens.
- Increased farm income up to 800%.
- Built 165 wood-conserving stoves (saving 1,650 trees per year)

SHI is proud in the fact that it works only in communities where we have been invited by local people. One of their main strengths is that their projects are locally initiated and supported by in-country organizations, which helps to ensure that the work will continue long after they left an area.

So, now that you know them a little better, you can lay back and enjoy this video clip. The story of Don Cheyon demonstrates the important work SHI do in few areas - promotion of sustainable agriculture, planting trees, provision of wood-conserving stoves, etc. It was filmed and edited by a media company that is currently producing a documentary on SHI's work (we'll update you as soon as this documentary will be released):



If you like to know more about SHI, please check their website - http://www.sustainableharvest.org/.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: plant a tree for every book you read!

More News from the Field : Help Sustainable Harvest International Win $10,000

We got today a newsletter of our planting partners and friends at SHI (Sustainable Harvest International.) Recently storms and hurricanes hit parts of Honduras, Belize and Nicaragua, where SHI operates. But as the newsletter reports planting trees helps prevent more severe damages:

Despite these recent hardships, we feel lucky. Sustainable Harvest Honduras Field Trainer, Juan Carlos Sandres tells us that SHI is not in the business of disaster relief, but disaster prevention - and it's working! In his own words, "After the experience of devastation in my country from Hurricane Mitch in 1998, Sustainable Harvest Honduras has been dedicated to sharing agro-forestry techniques with families that were impacted by the disaster. We have been able to improve many vulnerable areas through soil conservation, reforestation, crop diversification and disaster prevention training. We know that when there are natural disasters, the families we work with are more resilient and their parcels of land are much less susceptible to erosion and crop loss."

So here's your chance to assist SHI with their work in these communities to bounce back from the hurricane damages, and do even better in other places:

SHI has created two groups on a new social networking site and will be eligible to win $10,000 if we can get 100 people to join our online groups. It is free, easy and will not lead to any unwanted mailings. $10,000 could allow SHI to begin work in at least 3 new villages, reaching many more Central American families that are anxiously waiting for our help. Please take a moment to join today and encourage others to do the same.

Register at http://beta.razoo.com/ and join our groups at http://beta.razoo.com/groups/shi and http://beta.razoo.com/groups/sw. Then make sure to tell everyone you know how to join each of these groups!

And don't forget to mention that you are joining because you heard about it right here :)

Eco-Libris: Plant a tree for every book you read!