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The Tulsa-based program equips farmers with the tools and trainers to address environmental change and poverty in their communities.
Somewhere in Africa, a group of subsistence farmers is gathering in a shaded area beneath a large tree in front of a school in the countryside. The weather is mild; the patches of grass are cool and comfortable under the tree, and the men and women are discussing business.
Many of the farmers live miles apart, separated by the vast rural areas and few roads. But they work together for a common goal — to combat deforestation, climate change and poverty while improving their environment, agriculture and health.
These men and women are subsistence farmers with The International Small Group and Tree Planting Program (TIST), which is based in Tulsa and was founded by local businessman Ben Henneke.
Henneke started the conservation program 10 years ago in an effort to address environmental change and poverty by giving farmers in developing countries new sources of income. Currently, more than 60,000 farmers are participating in India, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya, producing more than 7 million live trees, with 6,000 more being planted every day.
“The farmers all recognize that planting trees is critical to stopping erosion, to improving water quality and quantity, to providing firewood and timber resources, and to providing fruit, nuts, etc.,” Henneke says. “The trees absorb carbon as they grow, and that helps reduce the buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere. Trees are easy to measure and to prove that they have sequestered carbon.”
TIST is a project under the Clean Air Action Corp., of which Henneke is the founder and president. The 11 TIST staff members in Tulsa manage the TIST database, accounting and relationships with partners and funders, while also seeking additional partnerships and ways to grow the program.
Although TIST is Tulsa-based, it is run by and for Small Groups.
Once farmers voluntarily form a Small Group and join TIST, the groups develop nurseries, plant trees and decide which trees to plant and where.
Farmers are paid a small incentive each year per live tree, and Henneke says, “If and when the carbon market income from selling carbon credits exceeds the in-country costs of the training and quantification efforts, then the farmers will share in 70 percent of the revenues.”
Andrew Dinsmore, a member of TIST’s field staff in East Africa, says that in order to provide the best training material and improvement, TIST learns the needs of its farmers and the best methods for working in their areas.
Dinsmore says, for instance, that if farmers in one region of Uganda say they already know how to germinate seeds for trees, but they are worried about the decreasing fertility of their farms, TIST will spend more time teaching them about erosion-prevention efforts and how to make manure and compost.
But in another region of Uganda, the farmers might say they don’t know much about tree planting and want some additional income from their farms.
“In a situation like that, we might focus on teaching them how to grow mango, guava and avocado trees, which provide a lot of shade and fruit to eat or sell in the markets, and provide other benefits to their land,” Dinsmore says. 
Farmers are paid based on the number of trees they have, the size of trees and how large the trees grow. Trained local staff members monitor this growth through hand-held computers and Global Positioning System (GPS) field data, which are uploaded to the TIST database.
As TIST continues to grow, mainly through word-of-mouth of the farmers who recognize the value of the training and benefits to the farms and land, Henneke says he would like TIST to expand to more areas so that the organization, and programs like it, can help reverse deforestation and its effects.
“Working with people who are subsistence farmers shocked me into realizing that ‘sustainability’ in their world meant growing enough to barely feed their family, and to do it year after year required changes in their lives,” Henneke says. “TIST farmers are proud of being ‘green’ and helping the rich countries combat climate change, but they are even more proud of improving their local environment.”
For up-to-the-minute tree population and GPS coordinates of the groves, visit www.tist.org.
