Wild Nature Institute: Planting Trees for Giraffe Habitat

One of Wild Nature Institute’s key activities in our Celebrating Africa’s Giants education program is planting trees. Over the past few years, we have established tree nurseries at two schools in communities next to Tarangire and Lake Manyara national parks, places where we have been doing giraffe conservation research for 14 years. Students collect native seeds from the bush and plant them in the nurseries, nurturing them from seedlings to saplings. Some saplings are planted around school grounds and others are donated to the community, fostering good will with community members while improving habitat for giraffes and other African giants. We have thousands of seedlings currently growing, and have distributed 18,000 saplings to the community since we started this activity!

Wild Nature Institute's Veila Makundi and kids, displaying their trees.

One of the schools is Losirwa Primary School. Losirwa community recently planted 10,000 of our trees near Lake Manyara, restoring and improving habitat for wildlife and benefiting people, too. The trees are whitethorn (Senegalia polyacantha) and umbrella acacia (Vachellia tortilis).

10,000 trees heading off to be planted on the shore of Lake Manyara

We are only able to do this thanks to funding from our amazing donors who support our Celebrating Africa’s Giants education program - with a special shout-out to the Anne Innis Dagg Foundation for the tree nursery project.