Land stewardship – Community Friends

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Replenishing and protecting the planet’s natural forests through land stewardship is essential to a healthy climate. Reforestation and land restoration help provide climate solutions for future generations and the planet. Land trusts around the world are preserving green spaces, watersheds and protecting habitat.

In 2006, Community Friends began our land stewardship program on 40 acres in the cloud forests of Sri Lanka. This former colonial tea estate is located high up in the Knuckles Mountain Range at the 3,000-foot elevation. The land was converted from natural forest to a tea plantation by the British in the late 1800s.

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When we began surveying the land, we found decades of soil erosion, overuse of chemical fertilizers, monoculture and seasonal field burning leaving a severely damaged ecosystem. We partnered with the local university agroforestry department to design a land restoration project.

We converted the tea plantation to organic, established a tree nursery and planted thousands of trees to improve biodiversity. We have been selling carbon offsets from the land to help finance the restoration. The land borders a vast national forest. Our land, along with the national forest, has been nominated as a possible UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is possible that this land will be forever protected and once again return to natural forest.

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In 2017, we began a second land restoration project located near Dambulla which is about four hours north from the Knuckles Range tea plantation. This program partners with local farmers and teaches sustainable agriculture. Farmers sell their organic produce at farm stands. We installed new water lines and began growing vegetables such as chilies, onions, and corn to create demand for organic produce at our own farmer’s market. This joint effort with local farmers provides education and economic incentives as a catalyst for transitioning to organic growing practices.

Community Friends is also closely following the work of land trusts in the US, including Columbia Land Trust, North Coast Land Conservancy and McKenzie River Trust in the Pacific Northwest.