What is the real cost of a tree?
Pont-de-Buis Forest, France
A quality French seedling from a sustainable agriculture costs around €1.50. And this is the fair remuneration of a nurseryman who consciously does his job, so that it would seem completely inappropriate to try to negotiate his price.
It implies the work of men and women who will put it in the ground, following a silvicultural itinerary thought out beforehand and developed with the help offorestry experts. The entire human chain that humbly works, day by day, tomaintain and restore the forest must be paid.
It makes no sense to plant a tree without looking after it. If we were to take this example a step further, it would be the same as having children without providing them with a livelihood and education. In this logic, which we do not support, why not go and buy seeds at a lower cost, to sow them like the little thumb? Then everyone could claim to have planted millions of hectares of forest. This is not serious.
If some attractive offers promise you a tree for a euro or a few euros, you still need to be able to measure the reality behind them.
There are two possible solutions, the first of which is virtuous. It is an NGO that will match or exceed the amount of your donation to finance perennial plantations. In this logic, every donation made to an association makes sense and there is no such thing as a small donation, as long as it concerns the future of the planet. As long as the euro that you give participates in a co-financing, our reserves are null and void. But then, of course, this is, of course, tantamount to saying thata tree is not worth a euro.
In the second case, the company soliciting your donation acts as an intermediary.
It solicits your generosity and then will pay a third party owner a part of your donation while being remunerated in passing. Of course, this is always welcome for the forest owner who is often struggling to finance the good management of his forest. However, it is possible to avoid an intermediary and finance the forest directly. And then, to consider the value of something, you have to know its fair price.
And why wouldn't you also be associated with harvesting what nature has produced?
Why, once the trees have been planted, wouldn't you be involved in the harvesting of what you have financed?
What nature has produced free of charge and which some will benefit from, when the time comes to harvest the fruit, you can also have your share of it, since you have allowed it to be put in place. That's exactly what we offer at EcoTree.
Because we believe that nature has value, we refuse to sell it off. We refuse to contribute to the degradation of the forest. No, in France, and in Europe, where we operate, a tree is not worth 1 euro. The fair price for planting a tree is rather around 15 €.
Who would claim to have a good bottle of wine for 1 euro? We know that good wine costs more, because it takes work, and we are willing to pay for it. If we want resilient, productive, beautiful and healthy forests, we have to pay the right price.
This is our mission at EcoTree .
