science

Tree Aid

Tree Aid is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Tree Aid rather than just read about it. In short: Tree Aid is an international development non-governmental organisation which focuses on working with people in the Sahel region in Africa to tackle poverty and the effects of climate change by growing trees, improving people's incomes, and restoring and protecting land. It is a registered charity in the UK.

Key takeaways

Tree Aid belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Tree Aid to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Tree Aid from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Tree Aid is an international development non-governmental organisation which focuses on working with people in the Sahel region in Africa to tackle poverty and the effects of climate change by growing trees, improving people's incomes, and restoring and protecting land. It is a registered charity in the UK. Tree Aid has offices in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in Mali, in Ethiopia, in Ghana, and in Bristol, United Kingdom. It currently has programmes running in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali and Niger. Areas of Tree Aid's work include forest governance, natural resource management, food security and nutrition, and enterprise development. Tree Aid reported in their annual impact report 2019/20, that since 1987 it had grown 22 million trees, worked with 1.8 million people, and supported 36,350 people in enterprise groups. Tree Aid's work growing trees, and restoring and protecting land is contributing to the Great Green Wall Sahara and Sahel Initiative, which is an African Union-led movement of 21 countries with the ambition to grow 8,000 km of trees, spanning from Senegal in the west to Djibouti in the east. In 2017, Tree Aid partnered with the search engine Ecosia, on a project to support communities to restore land and plant trees along the Daka river in Ghana.

History and philosophy Tree Aid was established in 1987 by Neville Fay and others in the forestry arboricultural industries, in response to the famine in Ethiopia. Its aim was to provide a long-term solution to the challenges of poverty and environmental decline once the emergency relief efforts ended. This was to be achieved by local teams working with people to manage and maintain trees for fruit, fodder, shade, and soil consolidation. In a speech on 19 July 2017 at the 30th Anniversary of Tree Aid, Neville Fay said of the founding of Tree Aid: Inspired by the community-based African Green Belt and the Indian Chipko Village movements, we saw the possibility of how arid landscapes could be stabilised to recreate a sustainable future for the heroic inhabitants of those environments.

Focus of work

Tree Aid's approach is to work with people local to the areas they are working in, supporting them with tools and training to grow trees, protect land, and start sustainable businesses. This approach aims to tackle poverty by increasing the project participants' nutrition and incomes, as well as protecting and restoring the natural environment. Tree Aid's work contributes to the following United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals: goal one which is about ending poverty, goal five on gender equality, goal eight about developing opportunities for decent work and economic growth, goal 13 about climate action and goal 15 about managing life on land sustainably. Tree Aid's approach is focused on four themes:

Natural Resource Management – Working with local people to use the trees on the land to improve soil and crops, rather than clearing them. Helping farmers to grow back trees that have been cut. Pushing for government policy that protects trees. Forest Governance – Campaigning for forests to be managed by the people who depend on them. Working with communities and local governments so they can agree rules for using forests and their resources. Food and Nutrition – Working with communities to grow and protect trees to keep land fertile and help crops to grow. If crops fail because of flooding or drought, trees survive, providing nutritious fruits, nuts and leaves, to eat or sell. This gives people stable supplies of food. Enterprise Development – Working with local people so they have what they need to make and sell products from their trees. That includes everything from production skills and tools, to storage warehouses. Supporting the creation of village enterprise groups.

Fundraising Appeals On 17 January 2019, Zoë Wanamaker made an appeal on BBC Radio 4 on behalf of Tree Aid where she told the story of Petra, a Tree Aid project participant who learnt how to produce shea butter from the nuts of shea tree. Tree Aid reported that this appeal raised over £20,000. Between 1 April and 30 June 2019, Tree Aid ran the "She Grows" campaign, the donations for which were matched by the UK government. The appeal aimed to help one thousand women in Mali to set up small businesses that process and sell shea butter and honey, and give them tools and training to save and replant their local forest. Tree Aid launched their second UK Aid Matched appeal, called the "Future Forest" on 12 April 2021. The aim of this appeal was to help save the Metema frankincense forest in Ethiopia, by supporting communities with tools and training to sustainably use frankincense trees, protecting them for the future. This was expected to help tackle the effects of the climate crisis The Future Forest appeal was backed by public figures including Joanna Lumley, Chris Packham, and Zoë Wanamaker.

Completed Projects

Burkina Faso Forest Governance Phase 1 – Started 2007 Aim To reduce poverty and hunger for people across Burkina Faso by supporting communities to set up forest management plans and learn how to restore and protect their environment. Reported Outcomes

Restored and protected over 22,800 hectares of land Helped people to gain access to trees and set up forest management plans to protect the forests for the future Encouraged women to in engage forest management and increased female participation from 24% to 71% Partners

UK Department for International Development's Civil Society Challenge Fund Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency UNCDF SNV GAGF MEEVCC Restoring Land with Dryland Development Aim

To support rural farmers to transition from subsistence farming to sustainable rural development To influence policy and push for change with local authorities to support farmers with access to land as well as financial support To support women to develop businesses from tree products to generate an income for themselves and their families Reported Outcomes

Supported the development of 47 local land management committees in six sub-catchments setting out rules for sustainable and inclusive land and forest management 45,841 farmers were trained in water, soil, and forest management methods which they used to restore 6,886 hectares of land Women in the project areas also developed sustainable businesses Partners

Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of the Netherlands World Vision Australia (WVA) World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) SNV

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Tree Aid

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Tree Aid claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Tree Aid before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Tree Aid ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Tree Aid

In research: Tree Aid appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Tree Aid in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Tree Aid is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1987 establishments in England, Charities based in Bristol, Environmental organisations based in England, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Tree Aid outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Tree Aid in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Tree Aid means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Tree Aid out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Tree Aid in simple terms?

Why does Tree Aid matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Tree Aid?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Tree Aid.