Under the motto "1,000 trees for Senegal", Naturfreunde Hofheim and Naturfreunde Hessen together with Naturefriends International (NFI) invited to a Zoom discussion on 23 June 2021. Mamadou Mbodji, Senegalese Vice-President of the NFI and president of the African Naturefriends Network, gave a moving speech on the effects of climate change on the African continent. He states that these are depriving more and more people of their livelihoods and are thus also a determining factor for global migration flows. Continuous droughts lead to total crop losses, the erosion of entire coastal landscapes as a result of rising sea levels destroys settlements and farmland, not to mention the gradual erosion and salinisation of once fertile soils and the dramatic decline in fish stocks due to ocean acidification and overfishing.

Climate justice is on the agenda
While most global greenhouse gas emissions are caused by industrialised and emerging countries, which still fail to agree on effective climate protection measures, the countries of the Global South, which are most affected are not receiving enough support to combat the consequences of climate change. Climate justice may be on everyone's agenda, but these concerns have not gone beyond the stage of words.   

Naturefriends Climate Fund supports Africa
For many years, the Naturefriends have been supporting partnership projects in African countries in order to mitigate the consequences of climate change and to improve the living conditions of the people. Through the Naturefriends Climate Fund, everyone can make a solidarity contribution to selected projects. Mamadou Mbodji explained how this works in practice in the second part of his presentation, in which he outlined the projects financed by the Climate Fund grants in recent years: tree planting in Senegal, the Gambia and Togo, workshops for the construction of energy-efficient stoves in the mountainous region of Guinea and the construction of an urgently needed storage building for agricultural products for the rural community of Finkolo in Mali.

Currently, funds are being raised to plant fruit trees in Senegalese villages. The trees strengthen the soil, have a balancing effect on the climate and provide valuable fruit within a few years. Naturefriends Hofheim want to support the project with their "1,000 trees for Senegal" campaign and has already promised a generous donation. Further donations are urgently needed to enable as many families as possible to participate in the project.

Planting trees for our common future
Each donation counts - especially at a time when more and more people are resigned to the current global problems - and each donation is more than a drop in the ocean. In his final statement, Mamadou Mbodji says: "There are the sceptics and there are the optimists. I am one of the optimists. Those who think that planting a tree will do no good are very much mistaken. When trees are planted in Africa, it benefits not only Africa but also Europe. Let us plant for our planet and for a good future for all people!"

More information on the NFI Climate Fund and the possibility to donate: https://climatefund.nf-int.org/en/

More information about the campaign "1,000 trees for Senegal" of Naturefriends Hofheim: https://www.naturfreunde-hofheim.de/1000-baeume-fuer-den-senegal-eine-aktion-der-naturfreunde-hofheim/