Dr. Anne Hallum of AIR receives the J. Sterling Morton Award from the Arbor Day Foundation

We are very proud of our three planting partners, RIPPLE Africa, SHI and AIR, who are doing a great job fighting both deforestation and poverty in developing countries. We feel even more proud when we hear about another award or recognition they received that is joining the long list of awards they already have.



So it is our pleasure to update you that Dr. Anne Hallum of the Alliance for International Reforestation (AIR) was presented with the J. Sterling Morton Award, the highest honor given by the Arbor Day Foundation!



Award winners according to the Arbor Day Foundation are recognized for their leadership in the cause of tree planting, conservation,and environmental stewardship.

Congratulations to Dr. Hallum! She definitely deserves it for her ongoing efforts and endless work at AIR. Just to remind you, only last February she has been named one of CNN’s 2011 Heroes!

Here's more about why the Arbor Day Foundation awarded her with the prize (from their website):

Anne Hallum of the Alliance for International Reforestation (A.I.R) in DeLand, Fla., was presented with the J. Sterling Morton Award, the highest honor given by the Arbor Day Foundation. Hallum founded her nonprofit organization to help people in Guatemala by establishing a better, more sustainable quality of life through tree-planting.

The Morton Award is named after J. Sterling Morton, who founded Arbor Day in 1872.

Under Hallum's direction and guidance, the Alliance for International Reforestation has been educating residents in Guatemala and Nicaragua since 1993, working with 25 to 30 villages at a time, each for a period of five years. The staff (all native residents) educates indigenous volunteers about proper tree-planting and agroforestry that will provide sustainable farming as well as protection from frequent and dangerous mudslides. Through proper tree-planting, mountainside erosion is controlled and mudslides are avoided during the harshest of storms.



The native trees planted by local volunteers and farmers help preserve important forests, which have a tremendous impact on the villages. These trees improve nutrition for people and livestock, provide animal habitat, clean the air, protect local water, supply firewood, shade homes and fertilize crops. A.I.R. has worked with more than 110 villages in rural Guatemala and Nicaragua, adding more than 3.7 million trees to the region's rain forest.



You can find more information on AIR at http://www.air-guatemala.org/

Photo credit: Arbor Day Foundation

Yours,

Raz @ Eco-Libris



Eco-Libris: Plant a tree for every book you read

Dr. Anne Hallum, founder and director of our planting partner AIR was named one of CNN’s 2011 Heroes!

We are very happy (and proud!) to update you that Dr. Ann Hallum, the founder and director of the Alliance for International Reforestation (AIR), our planting partner, has been named one of CNN’s 2011 Heroes!

Dr. Hallum was named as a CNN hero due to her efforts, with AIR, the organization she established almost 20 years ago with the goal of assisting local communities in Central America to conserve their environment through reforestation, sustainable farming, and education. AIR, which is working mainly in Guatemala has done since then a tremendous work, focusing on planting trees as one of the the most effective ways to achieve its goals.

We congratulate Dr. Hallum on this wonderful achievement. Eco-Libris is proud to have AIR as one of its planting partners and support its important work in Guatemala. Since 2007 we planted more than 60,000 trees with AIR and we hope to continue and plant many more in our quest to balance out as many books as possible by planting trees. These trees have a tremendous value, both environmental and social, and only lately we could learn on their importance, preventing mudslide tragedies caused by tropical storm Agatha.

Hallum explains in the article on CNN's website how it all started:

The effort, nearly 20 years strong, was one Hallum said she never really planned. A political science professor at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, Hallum traveled to the rural town of Nueva Concepcion, Guatemala, in 1991 as an adviser for a university field trip. It was her first trip outside the United States, and despite not being able to speak Spanish, she was moved by a blatant poverty that "broke her heart" and birthed a "new purpose."

"I went into the villages where lots of the trees were cut down, and I held some of the children," said Hallum, 57. "They were listless and couldn't hold themselves up. Their eyes were dull, and it became pretty clear that they were malnourished."

The farms she visited were not sustainable, she said, because the soil was eroded and lacked nutrients. Hallum, a self-proclaimed nature lover, was not formally trained in agriculture, but she knew some basic facts about trees and food products that could be cheaply grown. With the help of a former student, she researched rural resources and learned that many local Guatemalan tree varieties could be strategically replanted to provide fruit, fertilizer, coffee, food and medicinal herbs where resources were failing or nonexistent.

"When we started, it was all about fighting poverty," Hallum said. "We wanted to help families farm better and feed their children better. But we started to notice that in the areas where (pine) trees were planted, the mudslides were no longer occurring. So that brought a new focus for us. Food, shade, fertilizer and mudslide protection -- the trees can do it all."

Nearly 373 square kilometers of trees are destroyed each year in Guatemala, according to the University of Santa Barbara's Department of Geography. Through her group's efforts, Hallum is inspiring villagers to stop chopping and, instead, use trees to safeguard their lives and crops against mudslides. So far AIR has helped 110 rural villages plant more than 3.8 million trees throughout Guatemala.



Check out the Alliance for International Reforestation website at www.air-guatemala.org. More information on our work with AIR can be found on the annual assessments which are available on our planting partners page.

More articles on AIR:

There’s no such as “normal” weather in Guatemala…but trees can help!

Trees planted by our planting partner AIR in Guatemala help to mitigate some damages of Hurricane Agatha

Updates and pictures from AIR's tree planting operations in Guatemala

A great article about our planting partner AIR, or: How to plant the seeds of sustainable future

Our plating partner AIR won U.N. grant for service in Guatemala

Yours,

Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Working to green the book industry!

* All photos are courtesy of AIR. You can see more photos from AIR on our planting gallery.

There’s no such as “normal” weather in Guatemala…but trees can help!

An AIR-planted pine forest, about 8 years old in Simajhuleu, Guatemala, stopping a mudslide from the road above and protecting a stream and houses below (June 2010; photo: A. Hallum)

Last June we updated you how trees planted by our planting partner AIR in Guatemala help to mitigate some damages of Hurricane Agatha.

AIR is doing an incredible job in Guatemala in general, but in such situations its work is even more substantial. This is also a demonstration of the value of trees planted by AIR and their significant impact on people's life.

Dr. Anne Hallum, the Director of AIR, who was in Guatemala at that time with a team of volunteers to plant trees as this was the planting season, sent us a brief report, which is enclosed below, on the event with pictures that help to get a better understanding what happened there.

There’s no such as “normal” weather in Guatemala…but trees can help!

The last day of May, 2010, tropical storm Agatha poured so much rain on south central Guatemala, it caused horrific flooding and mudslides that killed at least 145 people, washed away crops and highways, and hundreds of homes. Particularly hard hit was the Department of Chimaltenango where AIR works.

Some scientists speculate that climate change has changed the normal afternoon rains of the rainy season into intense “rain events.” It doesn’t help that decades of deforestation have worsened the mudslides, and that highway construction and gravel mining in the mountains takes down more trees, and safer engineering practices are not used.

In any case, the rains continued throughout the summer months (Guatemala’s “winter” months). In September “Tropical Depression 11-E” parked for days over the same area of Guatemala, and mudslides destroyed highways and one bus filled with persons was buried, killing at least 12 persons. One of AIR’s technicians was trapped on a road all night outside of Panajachel, with mudslides occurring around him.

What is to be done? First, AIR is responding with targeted emergency aid because the technicians are themselves Guatemalan and know the roads and villages very well. Secondly, volunteers have already been recruited to help rebuild homes—once it stops raining every day. Thirdly, the tree-planting efforts must intensify in these mountainous regions.

It was evident to everyone this summer, that where AIRES had reforested hillsides, the mudslides did not occur. In one village, a young pine forest that AIR had planted 8 years ago acted like brakes on a mudslide washing down a road and protected the stream and houses below. As the AIR technician said, “the little trees stood like soldiers” stopping the mud (photo).



AIR staff members & truck delivering food & water, in Santa Apolonia, 2 June 2010 (Photo: A. Hallum)

The benefits of trees seem innumerable – animal habitat, soil nutrition; shade; beauty; fertilizer; fruits, carbon sequestration—and this summer in Guatemala, they literally saved lives.

Josue, standing next to an AIR-planted forest in Simajhuleu, Guatemala; his family has worked with AIR for 10 years (Photo: A. Hallum)

AIR tree nursery; Santa Apolonia; Rebecca Hallum, Anne Hallum, with Luis Iquique and the resident committee, June 2010 (photo: A. Hallum)

For more information, and to donate for AIR’s emergency response, see www2.stetson.edu/air/

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

Trees planted by our planting partner AIR in Guatemala help to mitigate some damages of Hurricane Agatha

Last month Central America was hit by Hurricane Agatha. The worst-hit country was Guatemala - the BBC reported, nearly 112,000 people have been evacuated from their homes across Guatemala and AP updated earlier this month that officials in Guatemala reported 152 dead (out of 179 in Central America).

One of our planting partners, AIR, is working in Guatemala and we got in touch with Dr. Anne Hallum, the Director of AIR, who is in Guatemala with a team of volunteers to plant trees as this is the planting season.

Dr. Hallum updated us that they have been driving around visiting villages where AIR works and saw the damages from the floods. Thankfully, they have also seen the miracles of the pine trees which AIR had planted, which acted like brakes on the mudslides. Still, though, tragedy struck one of the families with which AIR has worked for years when a mudslide destroyed a house and four members died, while one is hospitalized.

Dr. Hallum also reported that AIR's Board members have responded beautifully with donations for this emergency, and they're delivering another truckload of supplies next week.

AIR is doing such an important work in Guatemala and we're very grateful for that and proud to be their partners! We're also very proud to hear that the trees they plant with our support have such a significant impact on people's life. Dr. Hallum added that 'we just wish we could plant in the whole country!'. Well, we hope that it will happen sooner the later and we definitely hope that our work at Eco-Libris will contribute significantly to this effort!

Dr. Hallum sent us few photos from Guatemala I would like to share with you:

These are pictures of what is left of a bridge & fishing town along the Rio Monogua, in southern Chimaltenango.



Photo of a young pine forest planted by AIRES that stopped a mudslide from across the road




Little boy helping to clean up outside of De Vega Santa Apolonia, Department of Chimaltenango, two days after Hurricane Agatha on Saturday, May 29th.


AIR truck loaded with supplies we delivered to the Emergency center of the City of de Vega Santa Apolonia, three days after Hurricane

Mountains around Simajhuleu, Department of Chimaltenango, where AIR planted trees 8 years ago, which are growing strong.

To learn more about AIR please visit their website - www2.stetson.edu/air

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

The director of our planting partner AIR is participating in a U.N. conference

Dr. Anne Hallum speaking with students in a school in Guatemala. Credit: AIR.

The Alliance for International Reforestation (AIR) is one of our planting partners and is doing a wonderful job in Guatemala, where it is working to make a difference for the local people with projects that are based on direct community involvement.

We just got the news that Dr. Anne Hallum, the director of AIR, who is also a Stetson University Political Science Professor, is participating in the ninth United Nations Conference on Indigenous Peoples at U.N headquarters in New York City this week in her capacity as co-founder and U.S. director of AIR.

Dr. Hallum said that "as a participant in the ‘Small Grant Programme’ of the U.N. Permanent Secretariat for Indigenous Issues, we have been invited to attend this conference, along with many other representatives of organizations that work with indigenous peoples. I am honored that AIR is part of this group of invitees, after 16 years of working in Guatemala. I am excited that we will attend policymaking panels that have on-the-ground impact for people we know very well in Guatemala. I hope to make lasting contacts with other organizations from around the world, and I will stress the importance of sustainable farming at every opportunity."

Last year, the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues presented AIR with a “Small Grantee” award to help fund the building of brick stoves in Maya communities in Sololá, Guatemala. Headquartered at Stetson, AIR also plants trees, establishes tree nurseries and provides environmental education in Central America. Stetson students volunteer with the organization during six-week programs, working side-by-side with local AIR staff in Guatemala.

Women who work at AIR's nursery in San Andres ,Itzapa, Guatemala, which is supported by Eco-Libris. AIR has worked here for six years, producing and planting tens of thousands of trees. Credit: AIR

Since 1993, AIR has trained more than 1,500 Guatemalan farmers, provided materials for more than 700 fuel-efficient stoves and planted more than 3 million trees. In 2004, AIR was recognized by the Guatemalan government’s forestry institute as the most effective nongovernmental environmental organization.

The theme of the U.N. conference, which ends April 30, is “Indigenous Peoples: Development With Culture and Identity; Articles 3 and 32 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.” The session includes discussions about human rights and fundamental freedoms, the future work of the Permanent Forum, and dialogues with several U.N. agencies. The Permanent Forum is described online as an advisory body to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, with a mandate to discuss indigenous issues related to economic and social development, culture, the environment, education, health and human rights

Best wishes to Dr. Hallum and we'll keep updating you on AIR and their achievements.

See more information on AIR's website: www.stetson.edu/org/air. You can also find more information on our work with AIR on these links:

www.ecolibris.net/AIR_Assessment_2007-8.pdf

www.ecolibris.net/AIR_Assessment_2008-9.pdf

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!