We have decided to extend the scope of our reforestation campaign to 500 hectares in view of the spectacular progress made by our team in the field over the last 2 months.
After convincing 180 families to join our project in January and February, i.e. 20 families more than expected, and as there were only 70 families left to convince in March and April, we quickly made the choice to gather 100 new families, i.e. 100 additional hectares. 100 hectares is a very important number of trees: about 50’000 new trees. From a financial point of view, this means increasing the annual budget by about CHF 20,000, which our resources easily allow.
These 500 hectares will be planted with 2’500’000 seed pellets from 250 different trees. A greater number of trees planted means a greater contribution to the fight against global warming, since a tropical forest of one hectare absorbs each year the equivalent of the CO2 emissions of a Swiss family.
Do you remember the arboRise game ? On 8th February in Paris, we tested a playful approach to understanding decision-making processes in a village community. One month later, Léa Ackerer, commissioned by ETH’s ForDev, tests the game in the field, in the small village of Diaradouni and then in Manakoro, in the south of the Linko sub-prefecture.
The arboRise game is very simple: the four players receive cards representing their fields, with different degrees of fertility. They can then play their cards (cultivate their fields) in several zones, representing the types of crops: food crops (cassava, fonio, etc.), cashew nut plantations for cash, or agroforests with arboRise. Each type of crop involves specific costs and income, as in real life. And as in real life, one can choose to spread out one’s activities or “bet” everything on a single crop.
What did this experience bring out? In addition to the smiles of the players, it seems that our game is a very good awareness-raising tool, to show the impact of the choice of crops (groundnuts, cassava, cashew nuts or reforestation by arboRise) on the prosperity of the community.
A key lesson seems to be ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket‘: resist the lure of immediate gains and continue to grow food crops even if they are less profitable.
We also observed that women play more conservatively, while men take more risks. We had also expected more collective strategies to emerge, but the players chose to focus on their own interests. This is an important lesson: in our fieldwork we will make sure that we create the conditions to strengthen the cooperation between the families involved in our project.
Playing a role-playing game implies that a few simple rules are set and that it is then the players who invent new rules as the game progresses. Such an evolution implies that the game master invites the players to seize this space of freedom. This is of course what was done on the spot, but it is possible that our interpreter got caught up in the game and did not translate Lea’s instructions as faithfully as he should have. Such are the vagaries of fieldwork.
We will obviously continue to develop and use this game as a real awareness-raising tool. For more information on the use of serious games in development: https://www.commod.org/
Do you remember “anything is possible“? The new arboRise tree sowing adventure in Switzerland, by bringing together “seed families” and “land families”?
Well, preparations are well underway, with a first visit in situ and the choice of tree species to be sown. First of all, it is necessary to understand the nature of the land: type of soil, sunshine, altitude (and therefore average temperature), slope… What is the history of the plot, what could be its future?
After answering, even partially, these questions, comes the creative moment: what does the owner wish to see growing there? Tree sowing, yes, but what? stately trees or rather fruit trees? formal garden aligned with the line or rather English garden? forest garden, tasty forest? should there be a small path to reach the trees? and now which species of trees?
Then comes the distribution of species according to the location of the participants: “do you have chestnut trees in your region? will you be able to collect the seeds? The forests in Romandie are full of different species, let’s take use that!
Thanks to Catherine and Yannick for their generous welcome and to Rémy, Dany, Christine and Laurie for the enthusiasm and all the good ideas 😊 tree sowing with you will be gorgious!
Role playing games for arboRise? In the lively atmosphere of the Viaduc in Paris, a few budding apprentice farmers are learning (laughing) how to make the best crop choices. Should I plant groundnuts on my land or invest in a cashew plantation? Ouch, my fertile land should be left fallow! What should I do with the land planted with arboRise?
Experience in the field shows that a playful approach is often the best way to understand the decision-making processes within a group. And we have the ideal partner, as we have the expert advice of ETHZ researchers who are recognised specialists in the development of these games (as shown in this video). Role playing games allow each player to experiment with virtual choices, without having to face the consequences in real life. This space of freedom is conducive to the discovery of new forms of interaction between partners, both in and out of the game.
In a few rounds, the game developed by ETH for arboRise proved its relevance: it was very easy to simulate the possibilities offered by reforestation to the population and how they could adopt this new agroforestry culture. It was also possible to quickly see what risks the young forests planted by arboRise are running.
The next step is to play with the local population during the second field mission of our joint research project, in 10 days! In addition to understanding individual decision-making, the game will also highlight the processes of co-decision, mutual aid and self-management, which our action could encourage in the future.
ZeroCarb is the carbon coach for 120,000 SMEs in French-speaking Switzerland active in the service sector. The intelligent carbon footprint calculator. It is a tutorial that highlights the environmental actions that the SME has already implemented and suggests new measures to progressively reduce CO2 emissions to zero.
Why does arboRise support a carbon calculator for microenterprises? Many of our members and donors are climate conscious SME owners. In talking to these entrepreneurs we realised that they lack a tool to help them make the transition to a greener future. And it has to be affordable, because a small SME often does not have the resources to hire external consultants!
ZeroCarb provides a simple, fast and cheap solution to suggest relevant carbon footprint reduction measures to SME owners, and offers them an obvious solution to offset the remaining emissions: planting trees with arboRise!
Do you run a service sector company with less than 10 employees? ZeroCarb is for you! In less than 10 minutes you know the carbon footprint of your SME and get ideas on how to reduce it. Take advantage, the ZeroCarb carbon footprint calculator is still free!
An ecological fable before its time, Jean Giono’s The Man Who Planted Trees is a short story written in 1953 to “make people like planting trees”, in his words. In this short story, the narrator recalls his encounter in Haute-Provence with an extraordinary character: a solitary and peaceful shepherd who plants trees, thousands of them. Elzéard Bouffier, the silent, stubborn one, reconciles man and nature. A fiction that activates reality, a bearer of hope; this forest has social and economic consequences, allowing the surrounding villages to welcome new families when they were threatened by desertification.
Seit 2014, dem Jahr der Uraufführung des Stücks, führen diesen Text bei jeder Gelegenheit vor, die Musikerin lässt die Worte von Jean Giono erklingen, Olivier Havran verkörpert den Erzähler mit Sanftheit und Aufrichtigkeit. Ein inspirierender Atemzug.
Since 2014, the year of the show’s creation, Sara Oswald andOlivier Havran have been walking this text whenever they can, the musician making Jean Giono’s words resonate, Olivier Havran embodying the narrator with gentleness and sincerity. Inspiring breathing.
The arboRise association, inspired by Jean Giono, offered this ode to the foliage to forest lovers on 16 January 2022 at 5pm at the St-François church in Lausanne, as part of the festivities for its 750th anniversary.
Two patron saints are sponsoring the show: Saint Francis of Assisi, who was the first to celebrate Creation, Nature and what we call “the Environment” nowadays, which is why he can be considered the patron saint of ecology. And then Saint Marcel, celebrated on January 16, the patron saint of seed growers!
Our team is touring the 12 new villages included in our 2021-2022 reforestation campaign to explain our approach to the communities.
In each village, the council of elders and the village chief sign the “village convention” and commit to welcoming the project and protecting the future forests. Then our team explains the tasks of the “seed families” and the “field families”: learning to reforest is not improvised!
Interested families introduce themselves and sometimes have to be chosen by an innocent hand:
Then we go to the field to check the health of the seed trees and that the land is well cleared:
In perfect sync with the launch of the campaign in Guinea, the RTS operation “Tout est possible” has enabled us to launch reforestation activities in Switzerland too!
Thanks to “Tout est possible”, 16 families in French-speaking Switzerland are committed to collecting seeds and 6 landowners are making land available. After a very positive first contact by Zoom, we will start the preparations in the first quarter of 2022. Here too we will apply the arboRise method: learning together and solving one by one all the obstacles that will inevitably stand in our way. The project is still open to new energies: just announce yourself at info@arborise.org. Are you a forestry expert or a forestry whiz? We are looking forward to your advice!
