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:

Fundraising Appeals

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 Partners Restoring Land with Dryland Development Aim Reported Outcomes Partners

Ethiopia

Protecting the Wof Washa Forest Aims Reported Outcomes Partners

Mali

Strengthening Forest Management - Concluded in 2020 Aims Reported Outcomes Partners