ICC TREE PROJECT AND TIST
This year the parish at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church has focused on minimizing harm to our common home by reducing greenhouse gases and supporting struggling communities beyond our borders. To that end, ICC donated funds to plant 5,000 new trees in East Africa in partnership with the The International Small Group and Tree Planting Program (TIST).
WHAT IS TIST?
Through TIST, farmers in East Africa grow trees to make a living and support their families. The trees they cultivate provide food, shade, heal degraded land, improve water sources and reduce carbon in the air. The farmers (to date 100,000 of them in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and India) make a commitment to cultivate these trees for 30 years. They have created a carbon sequestering program into which multi-national corporations pay to reduce their own carbon footprints throughout the world.
Locally, these farmers work in small groups and at grassroots level. They determine the types of tree to grow and where they should be planted. The local community is engaged in the common mission and led by local leadership. This is a key to their success: all are part of the effort and everyone matters in caring for the environment. Children are raised with a sense of responsibility and learn the skills they need to become full and active participants in the community’s efforts.
WHY DO WE SUPPORT TIST?
Africa has had a difficult relationship for the past 400 years with the industrial powers of the north. It has suffered the plundering of its natural resources and the enslavement of its people for the purpose of enriching those powers.
A short distance away for our parish, the first African slaves landed in 1619 to build up our economy. This is not an isolated issue of the past. The pain, harm and destruction caused by slavery is still manifesting itself in our society today. This issue alone requires our attention and compassion.
As believers we know that whatever we do for the least among us, we do for the Lord. To love, care and support others creates healing change and brings hope well beyond the particular actions of a parish.
Today, the continent of Africa produces only 4% of the greenhouse gases warming our planet - yet 65% of the population of Africa is being negatively affected by climate change. When it comes to the forces of the natural world, there are no borders or boundaries. A virus doesn’t need a passport to travel, and toxins produced in one country don’t stay in that geographic area.
Likewise, the healing of the air in Africa will improve the air for us. We all share in only one world; it was given to us as a loving gift created by God. Let us treat it as such for the good of all people.
MEET THE TREE FARMERS PARTNERING WITH ICC
Following the ICC donation of 5,000 trees to The International Small Group and Tree Planting Program (TIST), Kenyan farmers who received those trees welcome ICC as a TIST partner. Kenyan farmer Alphaxard Kimani talks about our Christian obligation to "care for creation" in sustainable ways such as planting trees to offset pollutants affecting climate globally, and explains their role as farmers of these trees.
AFFIRMING THE VALUE OF TREES
In one of Father John’s Weekly Reflections, he discusses ICC’s partnership with the TIST program, which invests in trees for small farmers in Kenya and other regions of Eastern Africa. This response to climate challenges reduces CO2 and dramatically improves the lives of those in local communities.