Shanghai Roots & Shoots: 10th Anniversary

As the Shanghai branch of the international environmental Roots & Shoots organisation celebrates its 10th anniversary, TALK caught up with Executive Director Tori Zwisler who gave us the lowdown on what R&S have been up to, a progress report on the Million Tree Project and the challenges of growing as an organisation and spreading awareness of environmental issues in the community.

How has Roots & Shoots developed over the years?

From just being one person, me, working as a volunteer from my own house we are now 17 staff in the office and many more volunteers.

What do you feel has been the organisation’s greatest achievement in Shanghai?

The amount of students we have been in contact with and through programs in schools empowered students to understand environmental concerns.

What have and/or are the greatest challenges?

They are really just the normal challenges of an organisation: funding, staff development and transparency. To address these issues, lots of training and continued education is provided by the company. Of course funding challenges are always there but we have worked hard to diversify our donor base, with donations coming from individuals, foundations and companies.

Tell us about the Million Tree Project?

In looking at what would have a positive effect environmentally in China, the Million Tree Project was started three years ago. We had been looking into tree planting to improve both ecological and humanitarian conditions and had travelled through a region in inner Mongolia where there was a lot of desert taking over the land. With the local government of Tongliao and KuLun municipality supporting tree planting, Roots & Shoots got involved in creating and executing a tree planting sustainability plan with a target of one million trees.

So far 200 thousand trees have been planted and we foresee that this number will double by the end of 2010, but we may not be able to plant more trees than that each year. We will reach one million trees in 2013 or 2014. Ensuring that the planting is sustainable and looking at how to keep the planted trees alive over the years can be a real challenge.

There’s been a great community response to support the project. It benefits the farmers directly through them being paid to plant the trees and growing crops between the rows of trees as a result of the land recovery. We are continuously looking to increase support from those who wish to get involved or companies who are conscious about offsetting their carbon footprint as well as extending awareness about the project in the region to get more people involved in tree planting. It’s not just about rushing for the target of having planted one million trees, but also making sure it’s sustainable.

How can people find out more or get involved with Roots & Shoots?

They can visit our website where there’s both information about how they can get involved and the various environmental projects we are running.