Keeling Curve

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Project Summary / Description:

This project identifies critically degraded lands where communities face extreme poverty, malnutrition and are unable to grow food thanks to the collapse of natural soil and water cycles. We deploy smart, mobile reforestation units throughout local villages which train and equip communities to plant indigenous, drought-resistant, nutritious food forests. The innovative techniques allow nature to rebalance, restoring soil fertility and water cycles to these former forest areas. The extraordinary element is our use of little-known oxalogenic tree species‚ , which transfer sequestered carbon directly into the soil, fixing it as limestone, forming long term carbon sinks beyond the trees‚ lifespan.

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With one aim of our project being to reforest severely degraded lands, the original objective of the partner Sadhana Forest was to support local rural communities to retain water and cultivate their food using sustainable agriculture techniques. Since poverty, climate change and unsustainable agriculture has destroyed their once fertile lands, a core mission was to provide environmental education to propagate an ecologically responsible and sustainable way of living. In each region where we operate, OneAction and Sadhana Forest work only with local staff and partners and empowers individuals to take ownership of conservation measures that will provide food security and hence improved health and resilience. 
Additionally, we ensure full ownership of the trees and the freedom to use the nutritional outputs as suits the families within the community, since we only plant the trees on family owned land. Not only does this increase the tree survival rate, thanks to owners taking pride in their trees and the food they provide, but it ensures that all knowledge and skills on the smart reforestation techniques remain embedded within the communities and can be passed on to other households and generations over time. 
Since these communities are some of the poorest and most remote in the world, receiving the tools and expertise to restore their lands themselves, after the initial training (and ongoing monitoring and learning opportunities) means they will become more food secure and climate resilient, ultimately also able to cultivate crops as soils and water cycles are restored over time. Indeed, we estimate based on similar previous projects that 80% of beneficiaries should observe significant improvement in access to adequate food after 7 years 9with many species producing nutritional value after 2 or 3 years such as the Moringa tree leaves). After 3 years, the land is fertile enough to allow the cultivation of vegetable gardens.

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