The Great Primate Handshake – Volunteer in Africa, working to conserve monkeys and apes through film and educational content production

Jeremiah Muramba

Jeremiah Muramba is a resident of Bore, making his living from small-scale farming and devoting his spare time to helping with efforts to reforest the area.  As he puts it, his role is to make sure the existing forest and newly-planted saplings cannot be destroyed, either wilfully or accidentally.  One of the main ways in which this is achieved is the creation of firebreaks around the perimeter of the forested area.  In other words, shrubs and bushes in this area are completely removed, leaving a section of bare earth which is less likely to catch fire than dry vegetation; this means that even if a fire takes hold near the forest, there is a barrier to help keep it from spreading quickly into the forest itself.

The other major way in which Jeremiah and other community members concerned for the future of the forest help to safeguard its future is through education.  Conservation of the forest is an important part of the syllabus in the local primary school, and Jeremiah feels it is important for this to remain the standard, as it seems that the younger the people, the more accepting they are of being told how to manage and care for their environment.  However, adult education is also something that is taken seriously by everyone involved in the reforestation effort, with Jeremiah and his friends taking every opportunity to remind people of the importance of the forest for their livelihoods and survival.

Some 400 residents of Bore rely on the water from one river for all their water needs – drinking, cooking, washing, and watering crops.  The river is only usually full in May and November, and water levels fall quickly during the dry season. This year, there has been less rainfall than usual, so the river didn’t even fill in May, and the community is struggling for water. The forest acts as water catchment, so the bigger the area covered by trees, the longer the water would last each year before people had to start making the six kilometre journey to the next nearest source of water.  Whereas before the reforestation project started, people would cut down trees to make charcoal or for firewood, they now have an understanding of the consequences of doing so; namely, loss of the water so desperately needed to keep their crops alive and their families and animals watered and cleaned. They also have an incentive to nurture the saplings planted in the area, as they can sell the fruits of trees such as cashews and mangoes.

The community's water source.

Though it is clear that the community itself is having a strong influence on the fortunes of Bore’s forest, Jeremiah was also keen to emphasise the benefits of having support from Treeflights , the carbon-offsetting company used by the Handshake to offset the carbon from volunteer and staff flights and emissions from the truck and generator.  As well as providing seedlings of indigenous trees and putting up funds for the purchase of land on which to plant them, the organisation enabled the local school to have solar power, allowing lessons to continue even when it is dark, and giving the teachers better communication with the world outside Bore, as they are now able to keep their mobile phones charged.

With continued support from members of the community and from Treeflights, Jeremiah hopes that the reforestation project will continue to benefit Bore as a whole; not just the people, but the ecosystem and animals within it as well.