Hey guys! Winterbike here, my introduction post is right here, and I have a few articles here, here and here. I like bicycles, but I like trees even more!
I have a problem right now. I need money. Money allows me plant trees, and the more trees there are, the happier I am. I figured I could use your help.
Enters Eden Reforestation Projects
Planting a tree here in my sweet and cold-as-fuck Canadastan costs between 10$ (cheap ass generic tree) and 60-70$ (awesome cherry tree). Not too bad, but still quite costly. I planted a bunch of fruit trees and bushes on my property for my tenants last year, but meanwhile, Eden Reforestation Projects, my favorite charity of all time, can plant trees for 10 cents each, i.e. 10 trees per dollar.
There's not just simply handing random checks either, they work towards rebuilding local economies and ecosystems. They bring a win-win solution (the environment and the local people profit) to the table, which is how smart people solve problems. Crypto people can appreciate this.
1 - ERP finds a spot with an impoverished economy and where deforestation has taken its toll, and deals with the local people in charge to strike a deal with them: ERP will pay them money to plant the trees, on the condition that the resulting forest gets protected.
2 - A local economy is created with the workers' wage, who can now, among others, afford to send their kids to school. A certain percentage of trees planted are fruit trees and wood trees for the future benefit of the village.
3 - Over time, the reforestation kickstarts the local economy, while improving the environment (less soil loss, more biodiversity, less toxic air particles, ...). The best example is their work done in Madagascar, where mangroves are replanted. More mangroves = more fish nurseries = a return of the fishing industry. If you still doubt the importance of forests for economic growth, go read Jared Diamond's Collapse, about what makes some civilizations survive or disappear.
4 - The whole process works well enough that they can plant 10 trees for every dollar they receive. They have planted 125 million trees so far in Madagascar, Nepal, Haiti and Ethiopia, while rebuilding tanking economies. It beats giving out random checks to poor people 120 times out of 10.
Upvote this and the money goes to plant trees
Here's where this post comes into play. My financial situation isn't that great right now*, but I still want to raise awareness about Eden Reforestation Project's work, and help them plant more trees. All the Steem Dollars I get on upvotes will go to ERP after the payout. I hope for 500 trees planted, but just 1 would be enough to make my day. I will be 100% transparent about this and will give photo (and video if I can figure it out) evidence for everything!
- Side story: giving to charity is a dilemma for me at the moment, since I'm not sure about the best path to make the biggest impact possible with my money. Do I invest as much as I can now to have a ton of money later to fund big stuff (dream right now is to buy a chunk of land and turn it into a national park, or a food forest), or give more now? Since I'm young I opted for the former and bought some real estate, but a construction vice took all my spare money -_- . I still give 10$ a month to ERP since it makes me feel awesome to know 1200 trees get planted at the end of the year because of me.
So that's it. Upvote, comment, bring it! Your clicks won't cure cancer like the Facebook likes do, but they'll help plant trees and they'll get you good karma points :-D
P.S. I invite a ton of people to do the same with their charities of choice. The Steemit platform is great for redistributing wealth towards charitable causes efficiently!