SeedTree

About us

SeedTree is a public 501(c)(3) non-profit organization as well as a 509(1)(a) public educational foundation registered in Maine, assisting self-reliant efforts to preserve and renew forest ecosystems. The worldwide losses of ecosystems and daily irreversible loss of species are among the most compelling issues of our time. In 1995, we gathered expertise in forestry, renewable energy and human development, and founded SeedTree to face these urgent issues.

Planting the seed of a tree begins restoring lands, forests, their biodiversity and the quality of life they provide. We started with a participatory program of indigenous seed collection and tree planting in communities around the endangered Chitwan ecosystem, central among the richly diverse forests at the foot of Nepal's Himalayas. We continue to evolve integrated components from education to micro-credit for the environment and human ecology. The links below reveal some of the ways our program improves the quality of peoples' lives as it protects and renews their forests' health.

We are not a grant-making foundation, as such, but work only with those selected organizations for which we can offer on-site management consulting or supervision.

We help people who depend upon threatened forests to improve their lives and ecosystems in self-reliant and ecologically sustainable ways. In the self-selecting rural communities we serve, up to 96% of energy needs are supplied by wood. We have developed several programs to help them conserve and supply their own forest products sustainably. All our programs share a respect for diversity, both human and biological, that compose a healthy ecological community. All build on the secure foundation of participatory decision-making, strengthening the roots of democracy.

We are increasingly implementing our programs through Rural Classes in basic Environmental Systems Science and Human Ecology.

Carol Kamala Kinsey is the Chief Executive of SeedTree.

For other net participants we can offer expert guidance through trained staff, give an expert opinion, deliver a lecture, procure expert information and establish new contacts in the field of our work.