Green World Campaign

Biofuel Trees, Healing Land, Creating Rural Income

The GWC in partnership with CleanStar Trust will plant “energy trees” to help the rural poor regenerate their degraded land and generate income.  Jatropha (Jatropha curcas) and pongamia (pongamia pinnata ) grow in depleted soils and help restore them to health.  The  fruit from these trees contains oilseeds that can be made into biofuel.

The oilseed trees grow with little maintenance, fix nitrogen, help stabilize the soil on rocky land, and create a green cover. They start generating income from the oil seeds they produce after Year 1. Trees planted now will provide a reliable source of income for 50 years.

Harvesting and selling oilseeds provides a ready source of incremental income that is less prone to market price fluctuation or climatic events than other cash crops, and require little annual input.  This extra income source reduces pressure on families to migrate in search of work after the monsoon season, protecting women and children's health and education. A program selects and trains local “ Environmental Champions” to encourage  the local community to (re)establish sound environmental practices and fight climate change.

1 million saplings are ready to go in the ground. It is estimated that marginal farming families in the Beed District of Maharashtra will  triple their incomes by converting 1,500 acres of wasteland into forests.

The mix of trees with simple agroforestry of fruit trees and other crops restores biodiversity,  preserves natural resources like water and soil, and increases food supply. Other suitable species enable fodder production and agro-forestry, and help bee-keeping that will lead to the development of local micro-enterprises. Studies have shown that a strong economic incentive for responsible natural resource management will help to gradually repair and enhance ecosystems that have long been under stress.

The goal: Plant 1 million oil-seed trees. Bring sustainable income to 600 women in in 15 villages. Restore barren land to health. Create new forests that heal the soil, absorb CO2, and alleviate poverty.

600 women in the Beed District in 15 villages will be mobilized to grow trees on barren wastelands. CleanStar's focus is on helping women and youth among the rural poor create robust new income streams through better use of the few resources available to them (rainwater, surplus labor, and large amounts of unproductive land) by planting and maintaining an increasingly valuable asset: forests. CleanStar Trust provides upfront financial, technical, and operational support to help targeted communities overcome challenges in planting trees, and 3 years of support until the forests become productive and self-sustaining.

The world has increasingly recognized the urgent need to plant trees to absorb the extra atmospheric CO2 that is causing increasing climate change. The 1 million tree project will help sequester or displace ~500,000 tons of CO2 over the first 20 years.

Green World Carbon will work with this program and others to ethically realize the offset value of trees and create new revenue streams for villagers, supporting ecologically sound development. This global intiative will helps compensate communities for the key environmental benefits they produce for the region and for the world.

Carbon offsets may also accrue by turning the pressed-out jatropha seedcake into biochar, a form of organic charcoal produced by a process of nearly emission-free pyrolysis, that is buried in the ground as fertilizer,  permanently sequestering carbon in the soil.

CleanStar Trust has been developing and testing innovative programs around renewable energy in central India for the last 3 years in partnership with leading agriculture universities, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Yale University, the Acumen Fund, and local NGOs.  Their work recently won recognition from New Ventures India, a sustainable development accelerator established by USAID, the Confederation of Indian Industry, and the World Resources Institute, Washington.