Senior project has global impact
In Tanzania's national language, "kiswahili" means "plant trees."
Shanay Healy is interpreting that to mean plant trees in Ashland and plant trees in Tanzania, too.
She's not just doing a senior project for graduation at Ashland High, she's following a passion to help combat global warming.
This passion led her to join Roots and Shoots, a program developed by the Jane Goodall Institute in 1991. Worldwide, the youth leadership network has more than 8,000 groups in 96 countries working on community service projects.
The project took shape as a result of a 2006 summer trip to Tanzania, when Roots and Shoots youth leaders realized their partners there needed money to start tree nurseries. They began the campaign, ReBirth the Earth: Trees for Tomorrow.
Experts believe deforestation contributes 25 percent to 30 percent to the problem of global warming gases. Eighty percent of the planet's old-growth forests are gone. Tanzania's forests make up 39.9 percent of its land area in a country that has lost about 6.1 million hectares since 1990. Tanzania is Africa's most biodiverse country with more than 10,000 plant species, 316 mammals, 1,056 birds, 335 reptiles, 116 amphibians and 331 fish species. While Tanzania still has much of its forest lands, forest cover fell by 15 percent between 1990 and 2005, with the deforestation rate increasing significantly since 2000.
One of the world's poorest countries, Tanzania is plagued with population growth and poverty. Logging, agricultural encroachment, subsistence agriculture and fuelwood collection all threaten the forests. Mt. Kilimanjaro's glaciers are expected to melt within 10 years.
Healy organized a Roots and Shoots chapter at Ashland High School, where it is planting trees to help raise money for the tree nurseries. Nationally, Roots and Shoots wants to plant 3,000 trees and raise $10,000. In Ashland, the goal is to plant near 50 trees and raise $2,500 through tree sponsorships. Campaigners are seeking sponsorships of $15 from community members.
"For every tree planted here, three will be planted in Tanzania," Healy said. "Just by doing a small thing here, you're really helping the whole world."
In organizing her project, Healy worked with Don Tote of the Ashland Parks and Recreation Department and with her environmental science teacher, Jim Hartman, both of whom helped her select native trees that are hardy and drought-resistant. They chose trees both for ornamental and functional qualities such as acting as wind breakers and providing shade for areas around the high school, where the tree planting begins on Monday.
Forty-eight trees were donated by Ray's Garden Center, Valley View Nursery, Plant Organ and Lomakatsi Restoration, a local reforestation group.
Healy said the project has been demanding.
"I've learned that relying on others is difficult — to say the least," she said, talking about the difficulty of getting and keeping people involved in a project. "You find out quickly how hard you have to work for others to be as jazzed as you are."
There is no doubt about how jazzed Healy is, particularly when she talks about all the benefits of the project, which includes helping reduce CO2 levels around the world, providing nursery jobs in Tanzania, educating the rural poor, beautifying Ashland High School and saving wildlife habitat, especially the chimpanzees. Less habitat means the chimps flee deeper into the jungle, where they crowd each other and kill each other in territorial disputes.
"It's bad enough that there's people killing them for food — we don't want them killing each other," she said.
Chimpanzees ran amok through Gombe National Park, where Jane Goodall began her primate studies on the shores of Lake Tanganika in 1960. Today, it provides a home for only 40 chimps. Goodall, whose work connected the genetic and behavioral similarities between humans and primates, lectured Friday at Humboldt State University.
Healy said her mother, Kristina Healy, who teaches science at Ashland Middle School, also plans to direct a tree sponsorship campaign at the school. She'll be available at the school's open house, Bear Fair, from 6:30 to 8 p.m., May 10. For those who want to sponsor a tree and combat global warming, Healy can be reached at 301-2999 or 488-4507.
The high school senior said she plans to continue working to get younger students aware of and involved in the program and conscious of the things all individuals can do in the interest of conservation such as driving less, using less electricity and not wasting water.
"If we're not going to make the change, who is?" she asks.
