Good Gifts Catalogue

The African Blackwood Conservation Project has been selected to feature in the Good Gifts Catalogue (www.goodgifts.org). You can buy a gift of:
• Plant 21 seedlings,
• Plant 50 seedlings,
• Plant 60 seedlings.

The price of the gift is passed on to the ABCP in full. So, it is an excellent way of solving your gift problems, and supporting our work.

The Good Gifts Catalogue has a wedding list and wish list service, particularly suitable for special occasions like anniversaries or significant birthdays. You can use Good Gifts as in memoriam presents and keep a few in stock for unexpected birthdays or Christmas gifts.

The purchaser gets a card to give, or keep, acknowledging the gift, along with the guarantee that the gift is always wanted.

Good Gifts is a UK registered charity and features other conservation and economic empowerment endeavours such as the ABCP, as well as a rich variety of other worthwhile international charity ventures. See a list of  the charities featured and read testimonials from some supporters who have chosen this means of honoring their friends and loved ones and making a positive difference in the world on this Good Gifts Catalogue website page.

Donations from the Good Gifts Catalogue are currently funding the planting of over 35,000 mpingo seedlings in Tanzania. The ABCP appreciates the opportunity to participate in the Good Gifts Catalogue and gratefully acknowledges the outstanding support which this organization has provided to our conservation work. The impact of the Good Gifts Catalogue donations is profiled below.

   Makuyuni Project Update   

In response to the support provided through donations to the Good Gifts Catalogue, a model mpingo planting project is currently in progress at Makuyuni, on the east side of Mount Kilimanjaro. The ABCP has been involved in planting 17,000 mpingo seedlings in cooperation with the farmers and villagers of Makuyuni. Very careful planning has resulted in an area of 7 acres which have been cleared of the native acacia brush and planted with mpingo seedlings. A boma, or brush fence, has been erected to protect the young seedlings from browsing by livestock and wildlife. The leaves of the mpingo are very attractive fodder to all browsing animals, so this fence will offer protection to the seedlings until they reach a height of at least 3-4 m.. At such height, the trees will be tall enough to survive the loss of lower leaves and the bark developed sufficiently to withstand some damage from animals and still allow the trees to survive. A security building has also been constructed to house a guard, who watches over the plot to prevent either animal or human depredation of the mpingo seedlings during their early critical growing period.

Thumbnail photos chronicling the progress of this project are posted below and will be updated as progress continues. Click on any photo to see a larger image and interact with a slide show of photos.

The seedling preparation takes place at the ABCP Moshi Mpingo Plot (MMP) at Kiungi, south of Moshi. Here, the ABCP has created the capacity to grow 50,000 seedlings per year. The following photos show the process of seed propagation. After the secondary leaves begin to appear, the seedlings are transplanted from the seeding bed to soil-filled pots made of polythene tubing. They are kept in a sun-shaded shelter for a period of time, and then placed outdoors under the shade of the mpingo orchard at the plot for hardening and continued growing until they are mature enough to plant in the ground. This process of caring for the seedlings takes up 18 months, and by this time the seedlings have grown to about 0.5-1.0 m in height. At this point in their growth cycle, they can be transported to grounds where they will be permanently planted.

The following photos show the work ongoing at the Makuyuni Mpingo Site. From a wild section of land at the end of 2007, 7 acres have been transformed into a future grove of mpingo trees, which will be monitored and protected until they have grown to a size such that they will be insured a good opportunity of survival. Captions for the photos provide a narrative of the development of this site, now home to 17,000 mpingo seedlings.