Update #14: Planting 10 000 trees!!! / October 17, 2022

We are thrilled to share our 2022 Autumn plans with you. Thanks to the community and donors' tremendous support, we can expand our planting operation to 10 000 trees from the originally planned 5 000 for this year.

In 2021 we managed to finance and plant 2 712 trees. It was our first planting event with smaller goals, we took it step-by-step, which allowed us to gain much-needed experience. We learned a lot from last year, and we’re very pleased we achieved a 78% survival rate for the trees planted.

Thanks to all supporters and donors!

Expanding our operation would not be possible without huge support from the international motorcycle community (some support us regularly, special thanks!) as well as incredible private sector donors Fry-IT, Ltd. from the UK, Shirt-King & Button-King from Germany, Car Tirana and ALGRAFIKA from Albania.

We also thank Fidanishte Xhepi for helping us with our mission and supplying us with trees at significantly discounted price.

When and how do we plant this year?

Due to the number of trees we need to plant this year, the operation will span much longer than last year. This year’s planting area is much larger at 6.5ha compared to 1.6ha last year due to the higher number of trees.

It will take place for almost a month, from 22nd October 2022 to 20th November 2022.

Timeline

We start preparing the planting area on 22nd–23th October with a survey, marking, planning the operation and preparing for all the logistics.

The work on digging 10 000 holes will begin on 24th October, and this work will be completed exclusively by the local team, who will work for four weeks till the 3rd week of November.

Planting will begin 29th October and continue during weekdays with local teams and during weekends with volunter groups till 20th November, more information below.

Volunteers & local teams

Planting of the trees will be split between local teams and volunteer groups, with a target of 2 500 trees planted per week. Based on last year’s experience, we want to provide more income to the local teams and reduce pressure on the volunteer groups.

Volunteers will be planting only during the weekends (4th October weekend, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd November weekend), and there won’t be a requirement on the number of trees planted during the volunteer events. It will allow volunteer groups to take more care while planting, our team to monitor their work and, most importantly, time for the groups to enjoy Lurë National Park if they choose to do so.

Local teams will be planting trees during the weekdays when both digging the holes and planting trees will take place, keeping the operation on target of 2 500 trees per week.

We hope these changes will make the operation run smoothly, provide much-needed job opportunities and income for the local teams and make the planting events fun and exciting for the volunteer groups.

On behalf of the whole team,
Pavel