Don't underestimate local NGOs - they showed us how to plant 1.5m trees

A group of young Canadians decided to go and restore a tiny tropical island's lost forests. Here's what happened next

Eight years ago, when my friends and I started an international development organisation we were by all accounts completely unqualified. We were in our early twenties and had little or no formal training or experience. Most of us were tree-planting as a way of paying for university when one of our fellow planters, Jeff Schnurr, came back from a trip to a tiny tropical island named Pemba, just off the coast of Tanzania. He regaled us with tales of how he'd met Mbarouk Omar, the man who now heads up our local sister NGO, and had sketched out with him a dream to restore the island's lost forests. He now wanted to know: would we go out there and help?

Fast-forward eight years and our NGO, Community Forests International, has helped to plant more than 1.5m trees across Pemba. Our movement has also blossomed from rural farmers managing low-tech nurseries into community-scale solar microgrids and regenerative agriculture. Pemba is becoming a place to watch for lessons in frontline climate change adaptation. And in the grand scheme of things, we've had next to nothing to do with it.