Floresta Brings You the $1 Christmas Tree That Keeps on Giving.-- The Perfect Gift This Holiday Season Saves the Environment Worldwide SAN DIEGO San Diego (săn dēā`gō), city (1990 pop. 1,110,549), seat of San Diego co., S Calif., on San Diego Bay; inc. 1850. San Diego includes the unincorporated communities of La Jolla and Spring Valley. Coronado is across the bay. -- Holiday gift giving is getting greener this year thanks to the growing trend toward presents that give something back to the environment. Floresta, a non-profit organization A non-profit organization (abbreviated "NPO", also "non-profit" or "not-for-profit") is a legally constituted organization whose primary objective is to support or to actively engage in activities of public or private interest without any commercial or monetary profit purposes. headquartered in San Diego, Calif., offers an "alternative" gift for co-workers, friends or family this holiday season -- the ability to plant trees in poor nations where deforestation deforestation Process of clearing forests. Rates of deforestation are particularly high in the tropics, where the poor quality of the soil has led to the practice of routine clear-cutting to make new soil available for agricultural use. has damaged the soil, robbing farmers of their income and causing devastating dev·as·tate tr.v. dev·as·tat·ed, dev·as·tat·ing, dev·as·tates 1. To lay waste; destroy. 2. To overwhelm; confound; stun: was devastated by the rude remark. landslides. You can purchase tiny seedlings that grow into tall pine, oak and mahogany trees so thousands of families in Haiti, the Dominican Republic Dominican Republic (dəmĭn`ĭkən), republic (2005 est. pop. 8,950,000), 18,700 sq mi (48,442 sq km), West Indies, on the eastern two thirds of the island of Hispaniola. The capital and largest city is Santo Domingo. , Africa and Mexico can break the cycle of poverty and renew the landscape. Trees enrich the soil by retaining moisture and nutrients, their wood can be sold in exchange for food and clothing, and village women use the pine needles to weave beautiful baskets. An added benefit -- trees consume carbon dioxide carbon dioxide, chemical compound, CO2, a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas that is about one and one-half times as dense as air under ordinary conditions of temperature and pressure. to offset the effects of all those car engines idling in shopping center parking lots! For only $20, you can provide 20 trees to a community. In the past two decades, donations to Floresta's Plant a Tree Program have paid for 2.5 million trees serving thousands of families in more than 100 villages. You'll receive a gift card (printed on recycled paper) announcing your purchase. It's perfectly suited for a stocking stuffer or to mail out as your regular holiday card. To learn more on ordering your "Christmas trees" log onto www.floresta.org/holidaytreecards.html or call 1-800-633-5319. You can donate as many trees as you like starting with a $10 minimum. Editors: Download camera-ready photos of an artfully placed pine sapling inside of a pine-needle basket made by women in Oaxaca, Mexico. Three different versions are available at www.floresta.org/treephotos.html |
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