A LAMPETER man has spent the last decade working with a tribe in Kenya helping protect the area’s fragile rainforest. The Cambrian News spoke to Ru Hartwell about his work and helping protect and conserve over 300,000 tropical trees in the last 10 years.

Ru, director of Community Carbon Link in Lampeter, is working with the Giriama tribe in Boré, eastern Kenya, to protect and conserve tropical forest.

He said: “We’ve been working together since 2007 with local children, elders, mothers as well as volunteers from Wales to protect and conserve more than 300,000 tropical trees”.

“Forests don’t just help calm climate change, though, they provide food and protect communities from flooding and landslides.

“Our next project together is to develop new ways to earn a living to change the way people use the forest to move away from charcoal burning.”

The project is a partnership initiative between Lampeter-based Community Carbon Link, the University of Wales Trinity Saint David’s Students’ Union and the Rotary Club of Lampeter and is also backed by 50 other organisations in both countries.

“The concept is based around the idea that we need to find ways to work together to protect tropical forests in order to keep the planet cool,” Ru told the Cambrian News.

“It’s quite an exciting project and we have already attracted quite a lot of backing for it.

“We already have about 50 partners, have raised about £12,000 through donations and are just about to put in a grant application for £10,000 to the Welsh Government to build an accommodation block out there.

“Long-term we want to send Welsh youngsters out to Africa."

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