Philanthropy
At Oregon Tool, we believe we serve a higher purpose than the products we make and are devoted to positively impacting people, communities and landscapes around the world. As global citizens, we promote the careful use of natural resources and education on sustainability and best practices.
We have partnered with the National Forest Foundation, a North American-based nonprofit focused on community engagement and restoration of National Forests and Grasslands.
The National Forest Foundation (NFF) promotes the health and enjoyment of the 193-million-acre National Forest System. By directly engaging Americans and leveraging private and public funding, the NFF improves forest health through thousands of conservation and stewardship projects. Oregon Tool partners with NFF to support international and domestic forestry conservation and reforestation projects.
Domestically, we support the Trees for U.S. program, which targets high-priority reforestation needs across the National Forest System. Since the NFF began its tree-planting programs in 2008, it has planted more than eleven million trees on National Forests around the country that have suffered from natural disasters, such as wildfires, storms, insects and disease. Reforesting our National Forests improves watersheds by reducing sediment and other pollutants that enter streams and rivers, restores wildlife habitat and sequesters carbon and improves air quality.
Amazonian Community Reforestation Project in Brazil
The National Forest Foundation, through its partnership with the U.S. Forest Service and CONEXSUS in Brazil, aims to recover degraded areas in the Brazilian Amazon through reforestation and implementing agroforestry systems. CONEXSUS, Instituto Conexões Sustentáveis, is a Brazilian NGO whose mission is to accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy in Brazil as a basis for enhancing human well-being, climate resilience and sustainable use of land and resources. Our financial support of this project in Brazil will help scale up and promote the reforestation of Amazon forest landscapes while improving the income of small farmers. The goals of the project include:
- Supporting small family farmers piloting a project focused on forest restoration though agroforestry systems demonstrating best practices to other Amazonian small farmers
- Restoring five hectares of degraded forest areas
- Planting more than 14,000 native fruit tree seedlings, 400 native tree seedlings for timber purposes, 49,000 agricultural crops and 66,000 forage crops
- Supporting 200 small farmers involved in an agroforestry technology exchange and training activities to implement the project