Natural Resource Management
We support communities to restore soil fertility, protect ecosystems, and manage their land sustainably — building resilience in the face of a changing climate. This is our natural resource management approach.
Why this approach matters
The climate crisis has already reached breaking point.
In Africa’s dryland regions, once fertile soil can no longer support life. People who depend on the land for survival are struggling to grow food or earn a living, pushing millions deeper into poverty.
What we're doing
We grow and protect trees so that people can live off them for years to come.
We don’t just plant trees and walk away. We work with local farmers to make sure they have the training and tools needed to make each tree thrive. Trees mean stability. Their roots stop the ground being washed away in floods. They also store water when there’s no rain and help the land to stay fertile so other crops can grow. Trees also protect the planet, absorbing carbon dioxide, a cause of the climate crisis.
Fire management
The communities that we work with need to find firewood to cook their food.
But with more trees being cut down to make room for things like farmland, this is becoming difficult. We work with local people to make and distribute a new type of cooking stove that uses half as much wood as traditional stoves.
We train people on how to prevent bushfires from spreading with techniques like building firebreaks. This is vital in Africa’s drylands where bushfires can spread rapidly.
Conserving water
In the drylands of Africa, rain only comes over a short period of time known as the rainy season.
For the rest of the year, the climate is hot and dry and water is limited and trees and crops often fail to grow. We make sure that communities have the training and tools they need to conserve water to use all year round.
Across our projects we build water-conserving pits in the soil, known as boulis, which can each hold as much water as an Olympic swimming pool.
