Trees, Water & People's Guatemala Program Director, Leonel Jarquin, trains nursery owners in how to produce and market forest and fruit trees. Additionally, Leonel will provide environmental education to many other community members in the importance of, and instructions for, planting and maintaining trees in their environment.
How much does this cost?
Trees, Water & People will produce at least 6,200 forest trees and 5,500 fruit trees in their central
nursery this year, helping to establish the nurseries. In the future, nurseries will harvest their own tree seeds and will graft their own fruit trees and work toward self sufficiency. They have already opened three nurseries in the year 2000, but their plans are to establish a total of 20 nurseries. To
accomplish this, TWP will need:
Tree Nurseries: ($1,800 per nursery for fruit trees, tree seeds, tools, supplies) $30,600
Leonel Jarquin, Guatemala project director $6,000
Training sessions for local nursery owner $1,000
Local Transportation $2,000 Program administration $1,440
Total cost for the program $41,040
Who is this for?
The direct beneficiaries of the project are the owner/operators of the tree
nurseries, who live in these communities. The average Guatemalan on the south coast makes less than $1,000 per year. The nurseries provide an additional source of revenue (a part-time nursery worker can make another $500 per year from a nursery of 2,500 trees). The indirect beneficiaries are the families who
purchase and plant the trees to reforest their land and help meet their needs for firewood, wood for construction and fruit for home consumption and resale. More than 7,500 people will benefit from the program in 2001 (an estimated 1,500 families in the five communities, with an average family size of 5 people, will purchase trees from the nurseries.)
What are the obstacles?
Should funding fall short, Trees, Water & People will not be able to produce as many tree seedlings for their six nurseries or they will decide to establish fewer nurseries this year.
What is the next step?
TWP is in need of the funding to begin the program in January 2001. They have
proposals pending to private foundations, but they need additional support from individuals for this project. They will begin training nursery owners/operators in January. Seed collecting will begin in February. Planting will take place in March, transplanting seedlings and grafting fruit trees in June, community
education in April, and selling packets of forest and fruit trees will begin in June.
What does this all mean?
Residents in many rural communities have few economic resources (86 percent of
all Guatemalans live in poverty) and many suffer from poor health. The people living on the south coast subsist primarily on agricultural production. Although large farms occupy most of the land on the south coast, there are also thousands of small-scale farmers who are TWP's target population. Sale of their
produce is often uncertain, so diversifying to some fruit production is desirable.
Not only does the production and marketing of fruit and forest trees help reforest the land and stabilize soil, but it also provides farmers with training and education in this horticultural field and a new source of income. The Micro-Enterprise tree nursery program provides an economically viable method of
reforestation - one that benefits not only the environment of Guatemala's south coast, but the people living there as well. Trees from the nurseries help reforest the land, provide a more sustainable source of fuelwood for rural people, and an additional income stream from the sales of fruit.
