Restoration and Social Empowerment, Mexique

This project helps small, local, under resourced communities in Mexico (ejidos) fight the loss of natural forests that surround them.

These forests are constantly threatened by the negative effects of climate change with increasingly hotter, drier and longer dry seasons and an intensification of rain during the rainy season (June-August). These weaker forests suffer from wildfires, insect plagues and invasive plants. The trees lost are having difficulties in regenerating and as a result the forests are thinning out which then leads to soil erosion and depletion of underground water reserves.

Constant agriculture encroachment and illegal logging are other important factors which cause decreasing forest coverage.

Our project team helps ejidos to manage and overcome these threats through the implementation of beneficial forest restoration and conservation strategies. The members of the ejidos provide most of the labor involved with women and children often taking the lead. All trees are also maintained by the ejidos and periodically monitored by our project team for 5 years after planting. Lost trees are replanted during this 5 year monitoring period as well.

All planting activities also contain an education component that covers aspect such as women empowerment, sustainable practices and basic finances.

The result of our partnership with the ejidos are healthy, diverse and dense forests which not only absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere but also, in combination with our conservation efforts, reduce soil erosion and ensure the replenishment of underground water reserves.

All this contributes significantly to the well-being and sustainability of people who rely on their natural surroundings for their livelihood.

Donate a Tree to the World, a non-profit (under Mexican and US law), consists of a dedicated team of passionate volunteers based in Mexico and USA, led by Paúl Burgos, Mariana Segura and Roy Phelan. Paúl and Mariana (based in Mexico) were working as lawyers before they quit their jobs and decided to form this NGO. Roy (based in Cleveland, Ohio), joined the NGO after 30 years of business experience, notably 25 years with Accenture.

The project team started planting a few thousand trees about 5 years ago, and has grown since then to the point at which over 150,000 trees were planted in 2023.

Trees are planted in the Mexican states of Jalisco, Michoacan, Oaxaca, Puebla and Queretaro and our partnership with Tree-Nation helps to expand tree planting to many more ejidos in these states.

We work wherever there is a community in need and where we know the trees will be well cared for.