Trees provide countless benefits including:
- Stability on slopes, reducing avalanches and landslides
- Protecting coastlines, reducing the impact of flooding, high tides and tsunamis
- Improving soils and providing income
- Providing habitat for huge amounts of wildlife
- Mitigating against climate change, absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen
- Providing exciting and stunning wild places for outdoor enthusiasts
Since this target was launched in 2016, EOCA committed to fund 6 new tree planting projects in 2016 which together will plant a total of just over 1,000,000 trees. Further projects were funded in 2017 and 2018. In addition, EOCA members The North Face, LOWA, WL Gore, KEEN, Eso Es Konzepte! and Marmot have been planting trees of their own accord. In addition, Summit Members Original Buff,S.A. and KEEN have committed to funding additional projects to add to this total.
To reach our 2 Million target, we launched a public fundraiser to fund a project to plant another 80,000 trees in a hotspot destination for outdoor enthusiasts: Nepal.
Public Fundraiser: Another 80,000 trees!
This project, run by The Mountain Institute (TMI), is based in Nepal and will plant 80,000 trees in Nepal along 3 off-the-beaten track trekking trails. The area is degraded due to hunting, poaching, illegal timber and collection of medicinal and aromatic plants - made worse by the 2015 earthquakes and subsequent landslides. The project will establish nurseries, create a sustainable community resource to prevent further deforestation, train local people with new skills and knowledge for a more sustainable approach to natural resources, plant 80,000 native and locally grown saplings and strengthen the communities' potential to benefit from visiting trekkers and eco tourism.
So for every €1 donated, we will be able to plant another 2.5 trees for this degraded area! A donation of just €10 will plant another 25......
Due to the generosity of EOCA members, as well as members of the public, we are delighted that we have raised the €30,000 the project needs to carry out its work.
You can still support EOCA and its other many projects however by donating via PayPal below.
Having announced at OutDoor 2018 that EOCA and its members had successfully achieved - and in fact beaten -its target of planting/restoring over 2 million trees, we were delighted to hear that another member - ENO - had been planting a tree for each hammock sold and have planted more that an incredible 435,000 trees ths year!! This brings our total to 2,516,276! We are very proud of the legacy that the outdoor industry is leaving with this initiative.
