pressrelease

Contact: Cherry Hamson
Tel: 01527 597757

July 11th, 2007

CHARLOTTE UHLENBROEK LAUNCHES RECYCLING INITIATIVE TO GROW 85,000 FRUIT TREES IN MALAWI

Environmental film-maker Dr. Charlotte Uhlenbroek is urging people across the UK to support a new initiative to help tackle climate change in Malawi, just by recycling their aluminium drinks cans and foil. A fruit tree will be grown in Malawi for every tonne of aluminium packaging recycled over the next two years, so the more we recycle, the more trees will be grown. Recycling aluminium saves up to 95% of the energy needed to make it from the raw material, bauxite.

The new initiative is being run by not for profit organisation Alupro in partnership with British charity Ripple Africa who plan to grow 85,000 fruit trees over the next two years, so that de-forestation is tackled, nutrition improved and, in a few years' time, new businesses for fruit drying and juicing can be established.

About half the new trees - producing guava and paw paw fruits - will be grown from seed in 75 existing nurseries. And the remainder will be high-value grafted fruit trees, which will be produced in new greenhouses at the charity's base on Lake Malawi before being sold to individuals and small community businesses.

"This is a very exciting development for the area" says Charlotte "tackling three of the main problems people face: poverty, nutrition and de-forestation. Growing high-value trees means that they will not be chopped down for firewood, which is a major cause of de-forestation, leading to poor soil, crop failure - and then more woodland cleared to grow food."

The programme runs alongside a Ripple Africa initiative to encourage the coppicing of quick-growing trees for firewood, and the production of clay stoves which reduce the number of trees each family needs from 120 trees a year to 40.

Dr. Francis Moto, High Commissioner for Malawi says "The potential for the project to make a real difference to building a sustainable future is enormous. At the moment the only improved fruit trees in the area - such as mango, orange and lemon - are imported in very small numbers from South Africa, so combining a source of good fruit tree stock with training at Ripple Africa's demonstration nursery is going to help a lot of people."

"All people have to do to make sure this all happens is to recycle every single aluminium drinks can and clean foil container they can get their hands on - it must become the absolute rule that we recycle all our aluminium" adds Charlotte.

The initiative will be promoted in partnership with local authorities and businesses, with special educational resources for schools. "The great thing to remember" says Charlotte "is that the more aluminium cans and foil you recycle, the more fruit trees will be grown."

ENDS

Notes to Editors

Ripple Africa is a small charity which works in the Nkhata Bay District of Malawi on educational, healthcare and environmental projects. www.rippleafrica.org

The amount of aluminium recycled each year has risen by 47 per cent since 2003, when Alupro first ran a campaign to grow a tree for every tonne of aluminium packaging recycled, and more than 100,000 trees have already been planted in the UK and Burkina Faso, West Africa.

ENDSENDS