Devon charity appealing to help those at the forefront of climate change
The 'Orchards for Mali' campaign aims to help those who have no way of earning a living to survive
A Devon charity is trying to raise £80,000 for its climate change project in Mali - helping rebuild communities.
The Joliba Trust, a small Chagford based charity behind the 'Orchards for Mali' campaign has been selected for the Earth Raise match-funding initiative, organised by the charity Big Give.
Trustee Caroline Hart said: "Climate change is affecting us here, it's affecting fruit growing here and orchards in Devon - but it's affecting people in tropical places like Mali much more.
"If you've got temperatures that reach 50 degrees and a bit less rain fall on an already short rainy season then it just tips you over the edge - and you can't produce food.
"In the area in which we are planting the orchards in the south of Mali, it's no longer possible really to grow food and the mainstay has always been cotton. But cotton can't produce a harvest anymore because the rainy season has got too short.
"People are indebted to cotton companies, which don't really provide any income, some people earn as little as £100 a year and they can't survive.
"For the last six years we've worked with young people and women who want to plant orchards - we give them training and they have to dig a well, and we provide fencing materials and things to plant."
Ms Hart says they provide 'relatively quick to harvest' things like papaya, as well as mangoes, oranges and lemons - as well as things like watermelons, onions and other vegetables.
She added: "At the moment 80 per cent of young people are having to migrate to find work - maybe labouring jobs in cities or working in gold mines.
"They now are desperate for this local work planting orchards, as it's a secure income it revives their land, helps the crops not to be flooded in the heavier monsoon rains, increases biodiversity and it gives them an income which is way higher than any of the local crops."
Backing the fundraiser, Yacouba Goita from Mali, said: “I transformed one acre of cotton fields into one hectare of cashew nut trees this year.
"The cashew fruit can be eaten fresh and the kernel we transform into a nut butter or drink as milk. The leaves are used by traditional healers to treat dysentery. One acre of cashew trees gives me £500 to £1000 a year whereas I now earn nothing growing cotton as the rainy season is too short and it does not fruit."
Ms Hart added: "As we enjoy the sights of spring, the blossom on the apple trees and the bluebells coming up, we are asking people to share some of that joy.
"In Mali, the land is turning to desert and crops are failing as there is not enough rain. It costs just £95 for a young volunteer in Mali to plant an orchard of two hundred trees such as grafted mango, orange, lemon, cashew and guava."
There's more about the appeal here