News

This section contains news, our past newsletter articles, and news archives.

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Our main work at the moment is in supporting our partners in Cameroon and Honduras.

Many Cameroon farmers have shown interest in the Inga. Gaston Bityo has been working very hard to bring the benefits of the Inga alley cropping system to them. He grows the seedlings near his house in Yaoundé. To grow 500 seedlings in the dry season he has to water them twice a day, an hour each time, but before he can water them he has to fetch the water, again an hour each time. The watering is easier in the rainy season. All this he does without pay, just to help his countrymen, though we hope in time to get more money to make some payments to him.

But Gaston says his biggest problem is transport. The seedlings have to be transported sometimes several hundred kilometres to the farmers. Once the farmers are well established they can in turn promote the system to their neighbours. But first Gaston has to visit them to get them started. So we are now fund raising for a vehicle for him. It is an absolute necessity, and very urgently needed.  Farmers are waiting and seedlings are growing, ready to be delivered when the rains are right.

Read more about it at

No.23 Cameroon Inga project

and at

Support our projects

Progress is being made at FunaVid in creating a demonstration area of Inga alleys and rainforest with a tourist track going through it to provide income for the local people and publicity for the Inga system. Read our chairman's inspiring and very readable account of his visit to Honduras last September (2010) at

No-22a Tropical journey.  A visit to our- Honduran partners in 2010

For more background information we suggest you read newsletters nos. 20, 13 and 12.

We hear a lot about excessive consumption and release of CO₂ into the atmosphere in the West. But who do you thinks pollutes more, a rich man in Britain or a poor slash and burn farmer? Read Deforestation and poor farmers and Subsistence farmers. These articles were written a couple of years ago so some of the figures for the proportion of rainforest destruction and CO₂ emissions have changed, but the basic facts apply as much to-day as then.

Our partners Dr. Valle and Dr. Dodson on the FunaVid mountain where the eco-tourist trail will go, with a view of the Caribbean. (Copyright Tiiu Miller © 2010)

Besides news articles there are other articles of interest on topics relevant to Inga alley cropping, rainforests, fund raising, slash and burn, and more. For a little easy to read scientific background No. 14 Friendly Plant-Fungus Relations: Mycorrhiza is proving popular. For anyone with a scientific interest No. 11 Studying pests in Inga would also be relevant.

Finally, read about our various good fund raising efforts and be inspired to do your own to support us. Thank you!

A weed free, well maintained Inga alley at CURLA, ready for pruning for crops to be planted into the rich mulch.  (Photo  copyright © Tiiu Miller 2009)

Flowering rainforest tree in the FunaVid forest on the mountain. (Photo Copyright © Tiiu Miller 2009)