Community Forests International

Description

Community Forests International is a charity that works with communities to protect and restore forests.

It was founded in 2007 by Jeff Schnurr, after he was approached by local fishermen in Pemba, Tanzania, who wanted to plant trees to stabilize the local environment. Its operating model holds that communities need to make their own change, so it helped local partners in Pemba form their own organization, Community Forests Pemba, to run tree-planting and land-restoration projects. Since then the two organizations together have launched multiple community-owned projects and planted over a million trees in Pemba.

In Canada the organization owns and runs Whaelghinbran Farm, a large organic farm and forest property near Sussex, New Brunswick, used as an incubator for the next generation of land stewards through workshops, an apprentice program and horse logging. It also tells stories about forests such as the Wabanaki-Acadian forest of the Maritimes, the Spice Forests of Zanzibar and the mangrove forests of Mozambique. The organization is based in Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada.