The text came in the early morning hours via my WhatsApp. It was too early for an unimportant text, so I opened my eyes and reached for my phone.
âIf you want to imagine what Idai is like, think of Katrina on a steroid overdose,â the first line read. âMezimbite has been destroyed, trees, buildings, equipment. Fortunately nobody was injured or killed.â
One of the tree nurseries that had been at Mezimbite Forest Centre prior to Hurricane Idai. These nurseries housed native trees that would be replanted throughout the Sofala Province of Mozambique.
Locaina seedlings at the Mezimbite Forest Centre, prior to Hurricane Idai.
Mezimbite Forest Centre post-Hurricane Idai. There is a lot of work to be done!
I sat up from my bed alarmed. âHurricane?!? I didnât hear of any hurricane,â I thought, my brain trying to comprehend the severity of the situation after the fogginess of sleep wore off. The text came from my friend, Allanâforest conservationist and creator of the Mezimbite Forest Centre, a sustainable development operation that focuses on tree planting, training artisans, and making value-added products from the resources of the forest.
The first thing I did was search the news for a visualâat least to put the disaster into perspective. Beira, the closest city to Allanâs operation, was pummeled. On March 14, 2019, NASAâs Aqua satellite picked up the eye of the Hurricane ripping right through Mozambiqueâs fourth largest city, leaving only 10 percent of it intact and hundreds of thousands of people without a home.
Allan had departed for Austria just days before to present a paper at the World Wood Day Conference. Before he left, he bought enough food for the workers through April and stashed it in a container just in the event the Hurricane was bad. What Allan discovered while he was away, however, was that it was worse than badâit was disastrous. âIt took a lot of will,â Allan told me over the phone days later. âTo hold myself together when presenting in Austriaâknowing what happened to MezimbiteâĶâ
***
I met Allan in person fifteen years prior at an ethical fashion conference in Paris. He had earlier reached out to me via email, after hearing about my own work in conservation from a friend. We hit it off immediatelyâand talked excitedly about our love of many thingsâbut particularly our love for forests.
Born in South Africa and having become an acclaimed architect, Allan eventually made his way to neighboring Mozambique after witnessing the destruction of the beloved forests of the Miombo biome he grew up withâlargely for trivial thingsâĶâjolly junk shit,â heâll often say to me, which loosely translates into tchotchkes and disposables. A teaching fellow at MIT at the time, he decided to leave his position and put his time, talent and effort into something that matteredâto him, to the people there, and to the forest.
The intricate inlay work done by highly skilled artisans at the Mezimbite Forest Centre.
Doing inlay in a âSofala Plateâ, which takes anywhere from 6-9 months to make.
A finished Sofala Plate made out of secondary recovery wood from the Mezimbite Forest Centre. Photo: Esther Havens
Seedlings that are waiting to be planted at the Mezimbite Forest Centre.
Women and men both care for trees at the Mezimbite Forest Centre.
Over the past twenty years of setting up Mezimbite Forest Centre, he and his humble operation have become one of the largest tree planters in the countryârestoring little patches of native Miombo forest here and there to a sum of over 1 million trees over a couple decades. âNot something to entirely boast about,â I could hear him say, âbecause most everyone takes the trees without putting them back.â
Sadly this is a sentiment that can be echoed in many places around the world. Nearly a decade back, I partnered with Rainforest Action Network (RAN) to host an awareness campaign around the removal of virgin Indonesian forests for something as trivial as luxury paper bags, sourced by just about every name brand you can think of. This action later led to a paper buying policy among brands including Tiffanyâs, Gucci, and Levi Strauss; and the divestment of the pulping company from its parent company in Asia.
At the sustainable fashion event for the Rainforest Action Network activation.
ïŧŋYears later, I flew out to Indonesia to see forest destruction first hand on the Pandumaan territory in Sumatra; their forests, which provided for their livelihood and their way of life, were illegally removed to be turned into paper pulp or rayon. This later led to a campaign for transparency in the clothing supply chainâled by Canopy and RAN, particularly around rayon fabric. And even prior to this, I was made aware that the majestic Canadian forests were being cut down and pulped to make everything from books to rayon for clothes to paper towels. (Mind you, I have encouraged all my publishers to print my books on recycled paper...Still something Iâm shocked I have to explicitly ask for).
So when the Guardian in an article entitled Wiped Out revealed that much of Americaâs habit for buying cushy soft toilet paper was literally wiping out our forests (as researched by NRDCâs âThe Issue With Tissueâ report), I wept a little inside. Itâs so easy for us to unconsciously make less-than-great choices everyday, but when options for better choices present themselvesâlike recycled options, which sit side-by-side on the supermarket shelvesâitâs inarguably an easy fix to make.
Traveling through Sumatra with Lafcadio from RAN and members of the Pandumaa.
***
The week after Hurricane Idai made landfall at Mezimbite, I went to join Seventh Generation, the recycled paper product and eco-conscious cleaning company, at their âRoot-Inâ event at Grand Central Terminal to raise awareness on using recycled bath tissue. (FYI: Seventh Generation scored an A in NRDCâs scorecard for one of the most environmentally-friendly companies in their sector). If you visit their website, itâs clear to see their stance on recycled paper products: âIf every household in the US replaced one 12-pack of 240-sheet virgin fiber bathroom tissue with 100% recycled bath tissue, we could help save over 2,400,000 trees.â The Root-In event brought a few hundred trees to Grand Central, to represent how many trees we unknowingly cut down in a lifetime if we choose two-ply made with virgin forests. *Seventh Generationâs toilet paper is 100% recycled (minimum 50% post-consumer recycled).
Forest restoration is an option, of course, but as Allan has shownânot many will roll up their sleeves and step up to do the hard work. What would be the most sensible, is to not remove the forests so indiscriminately to begin with. This is where weâthe responsible consumer comes inâto realize our role, educate ourselves about the options, and exercise our power through our own meansâwhether that translates into purchasing a better productâor getting involved in local community or global efforts.
After the Root-in event, for which youâll see in the video, some of the trees had been (much to my elation and surprise!) donated to Los Sures, the senior citizen service center that I volunteer at dailyâtaking care of the chickens. They will be planted hopefully before the end of spring.
Some of the trees from the activation got surprisingly delivered to Los Sures, the Senior Ciitzen Service Center for which I volunteer at to care for the chickens.
But I couldnât help but think of Allan and his trees.
One of my many trips through the Mozambique countryside, Allan shared with me that when the land was laid barrenâstripped of its treesâit provided a blank canvas for invasives to move inâchanging the dynamic of the land. When such dramatic change occurs, sometimes human-intervention is needed in another wayâto do enrichment planting of native species to maintain the original nature and biodiversity of the forest. Mother Nature is resilient, yes, but sometimes she requires us to do our part and occasionally help her when help is needed.
The women of Mezimbite, which are the backbone of the operation. Photo: Esther Havens
