Local students planting trees

In February we welcomed a group of students from the International School of Tanganyika (IST) to Kilwa Masoko for a school trip. The group made the long six-hour journey from Dar es Salaam to learn about this beautiful part of Tanzania, including a visit to our headquarters to learn a little about what we do and the importance of our global forests.

For several months now IST have been buying sustainably harvested timber offcuts from MCDI to be used during design classes. Students have been learning about the importance of sustainability and caring for the environment, not only have they made the switch to sustainable timber but they also recently planted hundreds of trees in the school grounds using coconut shells instead of plastic bags to grow seedlings prior to planting.

During the trip students first joined us at the office to learn about our model and how we operate, followed by a tour around our on-site tree nursery where we have a mixture of fruit trees, shading trees and hardwood timber species. We then drove just outside the town of Kilwa Masoko – where our office is based – to Mtanga Secondary School where IST pupils met with a local student environmental group to better understand the ways in which they are tackling climate change. Mtanga have their own tree nursery and have been conducting tree planting activities around the school grounds for the past year so students were able to share ideas and knowledge with their counterparts from IST.

It was great to see both student groups excited about getting involved in planting various tree species across the school grounds, resulting in a total of ninety trees were planted across three days.