Laudato Si, Bee and Tree Project:

A community Bio diversity conservation and livelihood improvement.

INTRODUCTION
Bees pollinate a wide range of crops and plants, playing a key role in the provision of food and nutrition. They also pollinate forage plants, indirectly supporting milk and meat production. Without bees and other related insect pollinators, our lives would be negatively impacted. This work will be generating great incentives to take care of bees and their well-being.

The beekeeping and tree planting project promotes conservation and tackling poverty in the rural and marginalized populations in 4 African countries where Peter Bachman Foundation has been operating in the last 15 years. The project will help to ensure food security, promote more tree-planting as opposed to tree-cutting, and encourage agro-forestry programmes to flourish,

Bees require flowering trees and vegetation from which they can secure high-quality pollen and nectar all year round. This means the beekeepers have to conserve trees the existing trees and plant more, while reducing the use of pesticides that harm bees and and other ecological agents.

PBF has launched 3 projects. 2 in Ethiopia, Durame and Lalibela, 2 in Kenya (Mbuye and Kitui) and one in Uganda.

In Durame we have put together a group of rural farmers who have always done traditional Beekeeping to upgrade their skills and production by introducing the modern production methods. We have facilitated them with modern hives and new skills.

In Lalibela we have set up a center where we want to show case these new beekeeping methods to the local farmers. This center will be a training and information place where locals would learn and interact. We shall also avail tree seedlings and flowering shrubs for bee nectar.

The Diani Laudato Si
This is our latest addition to the PBF B+T project. We have identified a site in the Kenyan Indian Ocean South cost. In this site we want to establish a a training and a production center that will serve the whole East African region. The area is an ideal tropical climate just a few kilometers from the Indian Ocean. The local communities are traditional hunters and gatherers whose skills in beekeeping and honey production stretches back to several centuries before.The vegetation is good for both tree nursery and beekeeping.There are indigenous trees and shrubs that will ensure that the honey will be purely organic with great health and medicinal benefits.

Dan Amolo

PBF Projects.