A Community Solution with Global Promise
One of the things that makes Floresta special is that we don’t just focus on treating the symptoms of environmental degradation and poverty, we work to solve the root causes. The second half of our mission statement, “We teach, we plant, we create enterprise and we share the gospel” reflects the four primary tools we use: Community Development, Innovative Agriculture and Forestry, Credit, and Discipleship.
The Difference
While many environmental organizations are trying to stem deforestation by buying up or protecting the existing forests, Floresta is one of the few actually reversing the trend of deforestation by employing former slash-and-burn subsistence farmers in the task of reforestation, using agroforestry techniques.
"Successfully reforesting large areas of degraded lands, will require much more than financial commitments. Only by garnering the knowledge, support, and human energy of rural people themselves - and planting to meet their basic needs - is there any hope of success." (Brown, Lester, R. et al, State of the World, 1988, p.84.)
The cycle of deforestation, poverty and migration can best be broken by providing opportunities at the source of the problem: the degraded farm lands.
Fast growing trees can help to solve the fuelwood crisis, while fruit trees can provide economically viable forest cover. Nitrogen fixing trees help to restore the damaged wasteland, making the soil useable once again, and providing opportunities for subsistence farmers where they live.
Floresta believes that the rural people have a tremendous amount to offer in solving their own problems. We begin with what they have, and build on what they know. Where education is not enough we offer loans and tools. We offer marketing assistance and we empower the people, our partners to rebuild their degraded land and restore their communities to productivity.
Floresta's impact on the forest cannot be measured just in terms of acres reforested; every farmer in the program not only becomes an agent of reforestation, he or she ceases to be an agent of deforestation. It is no longer necessary to cut existing trees for firewood or new farm land. Thus, Floresta has contributed to the preservation of many more acres of natural forest than have been replanted.
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 Community Development is the process of empowerment. This takes time, but results are profound and long lasting. Community development encourages poor farmers to take ownership of their own problems, and gives them the confidence to apply solutions. |
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| We Plant |
 Innovative Agriculture and Forestry enables farmers to make the best possible use of the resources that they already possess. We teach and promote agroforestry, reforestation, soil conservation, and a host of other sustainable techniques. |
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| We Create Enterprise |
 Credit helps people afford to progress beyond bare subsistence, as well as to diversify village economies. Micro-enterprise credit is the world’s most effective poverty fighter. |
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| We Share the Gospel |
 Discipleship occurs through the long-term relationships that are formed as the Floresta staff works with community leaders. The good news of Jesus is woven into much of what we do, but through the process of discipleship, people grow in their faith, and become servant leaders in their communities. |
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