A Youth- and Farmer-led Forestry Solution

People are becoming increasingly aware of the urgency to address climate change. To act in time, countries must reduce emissions and transform economies, while also finding ways to remove atmospheric carbon. Tropical trees are the most efficient and measurable way to fix greenhouse gases.

Our solution is a digital platform to connect youth and local farmers that will lead to increased reforestation. Our approach will recruit and provide training in forestry, culture, and storytelling to youth in the developing tropics.

As a result of their inherent connection with their rural land, they have a figurative ‘passport’ to visit and relate to farmers from their geography. This platform will enable the world to see the impacts and importance of rural farmers, and develop a mechanism for social recognition and rewards. The youth will find status as solvers of climate change and purpose as connectors between global society and their communities.

With this platform, farmers and youth become co-creators of their own solutions. For example, they can select fruit or timber trees or can create natural forests or plantations on a land area of their choosing.

Our programs to date have given direct benefits to an estimated 2,000 youth and 20,000 farmers in western Nicaragua and El Salvador. For this platform-based solution, our beneficiaries will be between 18 and 30 years of age, male and female who have close familial ties to rural geographies, but who also have a level of education, or migratory or employment history that has distanced them from their communities. The second beneficiary group is small-scale farmers with land areas between 0.1 and 50 hectares of land available to them.

We aim to provide green jobs to 900,000 youth in order to reach 45 million farmers throughout the developing tropics over the next five years.

During year one, we will compile and analyze the results of our analog prototyping, devise a recruitment strategy, complete the design of the training material, and also finish a digital prototype of the platform.

In year two, we will recruit and train 950 youth from ten countries and look to increase job recruitment exponentially by the 4th year.

By the 5th year, these nearly one million youth trainers will have engaged 45 million rural farmers in tree growing and restoration.

By joining us, you and your organization can make a BIG difference for people, communities, and the planet! This exciting program needs major funding and partners to become a large-scale, planet-saving reality. To learn more, please contact our executive director Sarah Otterstrom today at sarah@pasopacifico.org.