Tree Aid's 2022 Wrap-Up
Learn about how we worked to grow the Great Green Wall in 2022 03rd January 2023
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1.8 million more trees: Growing the Great Green Wall in 2022
Restoration, acceleration, transformation and growth! We’re incredibly proud of our achievements in 2022, however none of this would be possible without the loyalty of our wonderful supporters, partners, patrons and funders.
While the final figures are still coming in, it’s looking likely that we will have planted a whopping 1.8 million trees in 2022. Each of these trees will provide a vital lifeline to communities, growing family incomes and tackling the devastating impacts of poverty, desertification and the climate crisis.
Read on to discover how your support helped us to grow the Great Green Wall in 2022:
The launch of our new 5-year strategy
Following the end of our previous 2017-22 strategy, our new 5-year strategy takes a bold next step towards helping to complete the Great Green Wall. The long-term goal? Achieving our 20-year vision of a thriving and resilient drylands region, where deforestation, land degradation and poverty rates are reversed.
Through this strategy, we aim to build resilience in communities, providing the tools and training needed for people manage their landscapes and grow sustainable businesses from trees.
Life changing work in the drylands of Africa:
A whole range of exciting new projects kicked off in 2022, which are now changing hundreds of lives across the drylands of Africa. Just a few examples include:
Fantastic Fundraising – our two annual appeals:
Our work simply would not be possible without the generosity of incredible people like you, who support our work with donations. A big thank you to all our supporters who showed loyalty throughout a tough year.
Leaves For Livelihoods:
In April this year, we launched our Leaves For Livelihoods appeal, raising funds to help us scale-up our nutrition garden projects in Burkina Faso.
Your support will help us to expand these types of projects across the Sahel, working with communities to grow gardens of nutritious baobab and moringa trees to tackle poverty and malnutrition.
‘As a cry from the heart, thank you. From this work, we can see that our future is assured. Our beautiful daughters are following in our footsteps and I think that they will not have any difficulties in the future”
- Alizeta Ouedraogo - Korsimoro, Burkina Faso
Resilience In A Nutshell:
Our most recent winter appeal ended this December, and we were blown away by your generosity in spite of the difficult economic climate.
Thanks to your support, we can continue to stand with Ghana’s rural farmers, supporting their community-focused cashew agroforestry plots, which are restoring land and growing incomes.
Welcoming a new patron:
Another highlight of 2022 was welcoming a new patron to the Tree Aid family – actor and director Adjoa Andoh:
'The climate crisis is the biggest challenge facing humanity. As a British/Ghanaian daughter, I am particularly impressed by Tree Aid’s practical, empowering approach to working with local communities in Africa’s drylands.’
We look forward to continuing our work with Adjoa alongside patrons Zoe Wanamaker and Dame Joanna Lumley OBE.
Growing the Olympic Forest:
2022 saw planting begin for our landmark Olympic Forest project. In collaboration with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Olympic Forest will grow thousands of trees and restore huge areas of land across Mali and Senegal, contributing to the Great Green Wall.
Together with communities, we will grow trees and restore degraded land, helping to sequester 200,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent over 25 years, and offsetting more than 100% of the IOC’s estimated 2021-2024 carbon footprint.
Fast-growing advocacy work - raising the profile of the drylands on the international stage:
We’re proud of the impact that our projects have had this year, but we’re equally clear that we cannot create transformation at the scale required on our own.
This year, our growing advocacy team have spoken at events around the world, sharing learnings from our projects, and campaigning for greater funding and support. Post-pandemic, the chance to share a room with all manner of experts, scientists, government officials and funders felt like a treasured opportunity.
In 2022 we:
- ...Presented at UNCCD’s COP15 desertification summit, aiming to hammer home a key lesson learned from our 35 years of experience on-the-ground: that good governance is key to scaling-up ecosystem restoration - learn more about our reflections from the summit
- … attended New York Climate Week, where our CEO Tom Skirrow moderated a World Economic Forum a workshop on scaling-up public, private & civil society action to accelerate forest restoration.
- … spoke at the Desertif’actions Summit in Montpellier, France. This summit focused on agroecology as a solution to desertification - to restore land & soils, grow incomes, and help create a resilient future for smallholder farmers on the frontlines of the climate crisis. Head of Programme Quality and Advocacy, Pietro Carpena shared impact & data findings from our ‘Growing Food & Incomes’ project - showing how an agroecological approach helped grow incomes, improve food security & nutrition, and restore more land.
- ...attended COP27, to support the growing coalition of organisations from across the Sahel. We spoke with funders and decision makers, stressing the importance of a civil society-led approach to growing the Great Green Wall. It was heartening to attend a keynote speech from Emanuel Macron at the Forest Climate Leadership Partnership launch event. Macron’s acknowledgement the importance of ground-level funding shows that many world leaders are now recognising the huge potential of the Great Green Wall, and the need for funding to support community-led action like our own.
It was heartening to hear Emmanuel Macron’s acknowledgement of this challenge first-hand at the Forest Climate Leadership Partnership launch event. He is amongst numerous world leaders who now recognise the potential of the Great Green Wall, but also the need for funding to prioritise community-based actions
Growing the Great Green Wall:
We were delighted at the recent announcement that the Great Green Wall is one of the first 10 UN World Restoration Flagships! Tree Aid's work is a key part of this African-led movement to reverse desertification and tackle poverty.
2022 was a vital year for the Great Green Wall – our advocacy team campaigned tirelessly for greater funding for the project, and worked to ensure that existing funding commitments are followed through, reaching those on the ground who can have the greatest impact and accelerate action to ensure this vital project is completed.