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The charity aims to plant one million trees by 2030

Alumni launch ecological restoration charity during National Tree Week

Alumni David Bartholomew (MSc Conservation and Biodiversity, 2016) and Harry Fonseca Williams (MSc Conservation and Biodiversity, 2016) have recently founded an ecological restoration charity called the Little Environmental Action Foundation, or LEAF for short.

They will be launching the charity during National Tree Week 28 November – 6 December and undertaking the first project in Kenya, planting highly threatened native trees in the East African Coastal Forest zone.

David said: “The LEAF charity was founded by 12 young environmentalists in 2019. All of the trustees are passionate about the natural world and wanted to make a difference in reversing biodiversity loss and climate change. We identified forest restoration as a critical activity that was needed to support endangered species and to sequester carbon from the atmosphere.

“We are all united by connections made during our undergraduate and Master's degree programmes. For example, I know Harry from the Master's degree we studied together in Penryn. In addition to being passionate about nature conservation, the trustees bring a range of expertise from biodiversity conservation, botany, marine biology and climate change ecology, to sustainable development, education and finance.”

The charity took six months to go from inception to its foundation in July 2019, and then a further year and a half to co-ordinate collaborations in Kenya and get the first projects started for the official launch. The team will be working with local communities around the world to protect habitats and promote reforestation.

David said: “We decided to base our first projects in the Eastern African Coastal Forest of Kenya because of the region's incredibly high biodiversity and its threat status. Despite having more than 1500 endemic plant species, all of them are expected to go extinct by 2050 without intervening action. LEAF has a goal to undertake ecosystem restoration in regions facing the highest rates of deforestation and biodiversity loss as these are the areas most desperately in need of restoration. They are also the regions where restoration can have the most impact for the local people. Pre-existing contacts of our trustees with organisations and individuals within Kenya meant it was a logical step for our first projects to be based here.”

The team are working with additional advisors including academics from the University of Exeter, with a long-term goal of restoring forests to self-regenerating ecosystems that provide services to local people and long-lasting protection to endangered species. In order to do this, they are focusing on community engagement and education as well restoration, using 100% native tree species and are research-driven approaches to maximise tree survival rates.

David said: “Our three major aims for 2030 are planting one million trees, engaging in 10 different countries and having 1000 champions of our work.”

To learn more about the charity please visit the website.

Date: 25 November 2020

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