Tree Planting Initiatives
Hundred million trees as a social insurance scheme in Bangladesh
SDC, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation started in 1986 a village forestry programme, mainly because the forests (on government lands) were shrinking very fast. While Bangladesh had overcome the food scarcity that had led to severe famines, it risked to run out of the fuel-wood for cooking the rice. This programme was entirely based on private nurseries and because tree planting turned out to be a very profitable investment, the nurseries also became flourishing enterprises. The over 2500 private nurseries that emerged from the project delivered over 100 million tree saplings per year in 2000 and helped many poor family to get out of the poverty trap. Trees were especially appreciated because they served as a saving and insurance scheme: while a sapling costs only 10 US cents, the tree has a net present value of 6 US $. Moreover, the tree can be chopped and sold if a child gets sick and serves therefore as a health insurance. Today, Bangladesh has again a sustainable forest cover on private lands and the fear that it runs out of fuel-wood is not anymore an issue: to the contrary, the nurseries are now facing a situation of market saturation...
Reference: Poverty alleviation as a business. The market creation approach to development. Urs Heierli, SDC, 2000.
http://www.poverty.ch/bangladesh-success-story.html
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