TIST
April 2006
CHEZHUMAI ©
Points to be noted
1. Small Groups who have single kind of tree should immediately start a nursery with two more variety of tree species
2. Small Groups who have formed the group with relatives should immediately join one more non-relative family to their group.
3. Small Groups who do not have a bank account should immediately open an account on your group name.
Don’t Miss Your Opportunities in the TIST Program
As a participant in the TIST program, you have the opportunity to join with some of your neighbors to improve your life and your income, change the landscape in your village and improve the environment! Are you making the most of all the opportunities and benefits TIST offers to you and to your Small Group?
What about your Small Group meetings? When you meet weekly with your Small Group members you can share new ideas and best practices that have worked best for your nurseries, planting seedlings, and caring for your trees. It is a chance to talk, plan and find help for work that you wish to do or challenges you may face. You can discuss what you will do with the income your group receives from your live trees. Your meeting is a time of fellowship, sharing and laughter. Rotating leadership gives each person a chance to lead and serve the other group members as everyone comes to realize the talents each person brings to the group. Having a co-leader not only helps the leader, but also gives all the members a chance to enjoy working with different group members as a team. The time of building up at the end of your weekly meeting offers time to really look for positive attributes of the leader of that week’s meeting and speak specific positive statements. In this way, the leader hears what he or she has done that has made a difference to the groups and the whole group becomes aware of what they value in a servant leader.
Are you taking advantage of the training given by TIST? Are your Small Group members coming to node meetings? TIST staff members give training at monthly node meetings on developing nurseries, transplanting your seedlings, what trees will be most beneficial to plant, how to be working with your village governments, sustainable agriculture best practices and HIV/AIDS awareness and care. There is also discussion and training on land ownership, village development and how to manage the income your Small Group receives from planting your trees. You can ask questions and get answers, and if the answers aren’t immediately available, those who are serving you at the nodes will do their best to find out and get answers to you. This is your chance to learn from other TIST group members what they are doing and what is working well. Your Small Group may have discovered some “best practices” that other Small Group members needs to know! Node meetings are the place you can share this information as well as ideas about what would make the TIST program as a whole better and more successful.
What about the benefits of the trees you are planting? You can find out the trees that will be the most valuable for your Small Group and for the environment as well as what the best trees are for improving the soil and planting near crops. If you have planted fruit and nut trees, you are realizing the harvest. If you have planted trees around your home and village, you can enjoy the shade and the beauty and see what your hard work has done to make where you live a better place.
Are you making the most of changing and improving our environment? Your Small Group can make a difference not only in your village, but also in the world. You can see the trees and the improved landscape, and it is an encouragement to you as Small Group members and to others who may think that planting is too hard work and are discouraged that things cannot change. There are your visible results! You never know when something positive that you accomplish will spur others on to imitate you.
Your TIST Small Group can make a difference in the life of your village and in the lives of each of your families. Don’t miss out on the opportunities of working together in your Small Group, taking advantage of the training given by TIST staff at the nodes, finding out about the best trees to plant and the benefits of those trees, improving your local landscape and the environment, and enjoying the visible results and the income of your hard work together.
How much Carbon Dioxide Equivalent (CO2e) does a tree contain?
Trees are about 50% water and 50% wood. Since wood is about 50% carbon, each tonne of live tree mass is contains about a quarter tonne of carbon. To avoid confusion, all markets use carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) as the metric for carbon credits. Since a tonne of carbon becomes 3.67 tonnes of carbon dioxide, one tonne of live tree mass is equal to (1 x .25 x 3.67 =) 0.91 tonnes of CO2e.
Seedlings in young trees are fun to watch as they grow, but they are small and light. They do not contain much wood and thus don't contain much carbon. If you're paying for trees based on carbon, they're not worth much.
Let's look at how much carbon is in a tree its first 10 years. First, it must be noted that trees grow at different rates based on species, rainfall, climate, soil and other environmental parameters. The chart below shows the cumulative the amount of carbon in a hardwood tree, measured in kilograms. After 10 years, this tree will have accumulated almost 1/10th of a metric tonne of CO2e.
Chart 1: Cumulative carbon (CO2e) in a growing tree
Year 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Kilograms 1 3 7 13 21 31 43 58 75 94
Note from TIST
Quantification on the newly planted trees will be done only after six months. When quantification is done immediately after transplanting, there are of lot of trees and the voucher payment for the concerned is small group also very high. Later after 6 months, when quantification is done on the same grove, the number of trees fall down by 50% due to very poor care by the members. This is a very poor practice. The main motive of TIST is to protect the trees. Every Small Group should prove their efficiency in protecting their trees. From April 2006, quantification will not be done immediately after transplanting. Your quantifiers will quantify your trees only after 6 months from the date of transplanting, so cooperate with your quantifiers.
Cooperate with your Quantifiers
Minimum 2 members from every small group should attend the Node meetings without fail. During the Node meeting, every small group will be given a date for quantification. On that day, your quantifier will visit your groves for quantification. The members should accompany the quantifier during quantification, walk with the quantifier and should help the quantifier in identifying all the trees. After the quantification, ask your quantifier for the quantification summary and file it along with your SGMR reports, this will help you during voucher payment to find out whether you get payment for all your trees.
Sakthi & Nila Small Group of Sokandi
Apart from carrying out various important steps in protecting the trees, the members of these two small groups follow various other best practices like regularly:
1. Maintaining a log book
2. Conducting their small group meeting at least once in a month and making a note of the proceedings in the log book
3. Preparing the SGMR during their small group meeting
4. Attending the Node meeting in time without fail
5. Accompanying the quantifier during quantification and helping the quantifier in finding & counting all their trees
6. More important – the members are trying to help their neighbors and friends to join TIST. During March 2006 they have introduced two new families to TIST.
Job Opportunity
There are few vacancies in TIST India like, Quantifier & Coordinator. Interested members may meet your TIST Officials. You can also introduce your relatives and friends for these jobs, but they should join with TIST as Small Groups before taking up the responsibilities of a Quantifier or Coordinator.
