Reforestation Program Invites Tourism Sector of Buy Seedlings

Members of the tourism industry are being asked to help plant one thousand trees in the Cayo District in 2022. The two organizations behind the reforestation drive, Toucan Education Program and the Friends for Conservation and Development, spoke with news five today about their joint initiative. They are asking people to purchase seedlings that women’s groups will raise and then environmental groups will plant. The idea came about as part of Toucan Education’s eleventh anniversary. They were looking for ways to the offset carbon footprint of their visiting students. F.C.D. wanted to help support community groups already working on forest conservation and re-growth.  

Rhondine Petrof, Founder Toucan Educational Programs

Rhondine Petrof

“We are in the field of international education and education abroad, and as our field looks at being more sustainable, and looks at reducing the carbon footprint of students who travel overseas for these experiences, the idea came to Toucan, how do we mitigate students’ carbon from their flight because that is really the biggest footprint they have. It only made sense for us to speak to FCD who has a long history of managing conservation areas and implementing this type of work. We are a type of organization that says okay lets go to the experts. I am so grateful they were willing to take on the reforestation portion of the program and to take on this partnership for this particular project that we want to do.”

Esther Sanchez

Esther Sanchez, Program Director, Friends of Conservation and Development

“We have identified several species of trees. Most of them are collected locally, and so it would be depending on the areas, well around the riparian areas might have some species that are more durable, so we have a list of different species that are being sourced locally, which means we have to collect seeds from early, and then we start to do the planting and so on. We do have a variety of species, based I guess on the areas that need to be reforested.”