there's a story that i'd like to tell
about a time i went to a little island
in the mediterranean with a history that
is widely misunderstood
this is a story about the mafia trees
and how we can potentially make the
world a better place
we're the generation that cares the most
about the environment ever somehow this
search to do something about my
environmental dread took me to sicily
for a very specific reason
really though this is a global project
but let me first rewind and go back to
where the story begins to be honest with
you
every time i see news about the fires
happening
anywhere in the world it's just
depressing i felt particularly impacted
by the fires happening in my home state
of oregon so last year while i was
living in italy
i got in touch with a little company
called treedom
who have made it part of their mission
to fight for the environment
they kept telling me you need to think
bigger the battle we're fighting is
about way more than just trees
and to convince me they sent me to their
projects in sicily
now to explain what's going on here i
have to give a little bit of historical
context
the mafia in sicily has evolved over the
last few centuries
this came about because the island was
constantly being invaded and occupied by
foreigners by the spanish french arabs
phoenicians
you name it to protect themselves the
native sicilians
would form groups that started out as
clans or families and then became
little armies that took advantage of the
chaotic
violent conditions of the island flash
forward to the 1970s
and gozanostra which is the sicilian
mafia were at the peak of its power
and a major player in international
crime this was causing all kinds of
violence and destruction on the island
and so in the 90s
in an attempt to fight against this
levita associations was born
there was a battle taking place to take
down this immensely powerful
corrupt force their goal was to spread a
culture of legality and their most
widely regarded work is the management
of goods
confiscated from mafia organizations
by the italian state in areas of need
liberated became this group
of cooperatives that were doing things
like organic farming on this
previously mafia-owned land now that's
where tridem and i come in
tridem worked with librida to get trees
and life and stability back to
sicily and the sicilians they're like a
supplier i honestly don't think i could
understand
how important this work was until i
began to speak with the farmers down
and it was in that moment that i began
to understand what this was really
all about the work is so much more than
just a
fight for the environment and for the
planet which is already huge
um it's bringing economic prosperity
to communities that desperately need it
they can bring stability in the form of
food and income security and they're
bringing back life to the land that was
devastated by
misuse and neglect
so here i am kind of entering this world
and i'm like whoa
planting trees is way more than i ever
realized like this
is so much more dynamic and
nuanced and multi-layered than i ever
thought
now treedom's work goes far beyond this
mediterranean island
they've worked with over 85 000 local
farmers in
17 countries around the world in an
effort to avoid monocultures and the
cool thing
that i learned about all this that i
never realized was that beyond fighting
for the environment and against poverty
doing this
can also be a way to fight against
gender inequality what freedom is doing
is fighting cyclical inequality with
trees
and like i said before doing this gives
a lot of these communities their own
sort of
regenerating source of income and food
we've planted
mango trees chocolate trees coffee trees
lemon trees you name it
now as i delved deeper and deeper into
the world of tree planting and the
environment
i started to wrap my brain around
like why this is so complicated i was
starting to see all the challenges i had
never considered before like for example
trees have a mortality rate you can't
just shoot pellets
into the ground with drones it doesn't
work like that a lot of initiatives to
plant trees
are great in concept but they don't pay
enough attention to the details and into
making it
successful now since earth day of this
year i've been pledging 10
of my patreon income every month to what
we're calling a digital forest
it's a very real forest of trees but
sort of reimagined these are very real
trees like i said that are getting
planted
but all over the world and we're doing
this so that no single farmer is
overwhelmed and so that the
same kind of level of quality and care
is maintained throughout this makes it
possible to follow the un
sustainable development goals which is
really important so far we've
successfully planted about 200 trees and
i'd love to get that number over a
thousand by next year
treedom who are sponsoring this video
have pledged to match the first 50 trees
planted
using the link in the description below
you know it might not seem like a lot
but these little things
really add up when you plant a tree with
them you receive an email
with all the information that you need
to get the exact coordinates
and you know see exactly what's
happening if you use the discount code
clarity you can get 10
off of the trees that you purchase and
if you ever so choose in the future you
can go and
literally visit the tree that you
planted part of the price of
buying a tree guarantees for things that
i mentioned before like the
mortality rate so if a tree dies it will
be
replaced so that what you are paying for
happens no matter what also part of the
price is the effort and resources
invested in building and supporting the
tree nurseries workshops they organize
on how to grow and take care of the
trees
and also regular updates and education
they provide on tree planting
and reforestation we're not looking for
a quick fix sort of solution here
this is for the long term this adventure
to get more involved and plugged into
the environment and what i could do
about it really took me places i never
expected to go
thank you guys so much for watching i
really appreciate it and
i'll see you soon let's plant some trees
you