Planting Empowerment Partners with Tour Operators for Carbon Offsets

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Tourism companies that are serious about sustainability and responsible travel have found a new way to reduce the footprint caused by travel: Carbon emission offsets. And they’ve found a partner in Planting Empowerment. 

Planting Empowerment (PE) works closely with poor subsistence farmers and indigenous communities in the developing world to reduce deforestation by eliminating its root cause: poverty.

PE grew from the belief that there exists a sustainable way for Panamanian peasant farmers to maximize the benefit from their natural resources.

PE leases titled land from poor rural Panamanians to plant, manage and harvest mixed species timber plantations. PE maintains 50 acres of timber plantations that include over 13 commercial species of trees. Building on the support and interest of our local community partners, PE hopes to expand to other communities looking to gain the most from their scarce resources.

What distinguishes Planting Empowerment from other reforestation businesses is our innovative land-lease model. Unlike most forestry businesses that buy land outright from subsistence farmers and displace them, (and encourage them to homestead old-growth forest), PE leases a portion of their land to reforest. The monthly lease payment provides much needed steady income, and encourages them to become better stewards of their land. The farmers’ incentive now is to conserve, not deforest. The University of Texas at Austin awarded Planting Empowerment 2nd place at the Social Innovation Competition in May 2008.

 

In November, Planting Empowerment became the exclusive supplier of carbon offsets to Crooked Trails, a non-profit that seeks to improve economic and educational opportunities around the world by changing the way people travel. Crooked Trails says, “Although we’ve been doing carbon offsets for two years now, this new partnership will allow us to do what we do best - plug in at the community level.

by Shelley Seale