News

100 plus x trees – Gottfried Müller’s vision lives on

14.10.2021

Planting and looking after trees has always been one of the important matters of Gottfried Müller, the founder of SALEM (1914 – 2009). On the occasion of his 100th birthday some years ago the team of SALEM-Togo wondered how to continue to act how he would have wished. 

This is why they have been planting every year, in memory of him but also as a recognition and motivation, 100 plus x trees – e. g. 101 trees on his 101st birthday, then 102 and so on.

Therefore recently – after the beginning of the rainy season – this year’s planting took place in the training centre of Baghan. The names of the trees are Pterocarpus. This botanical generic name means „winged fruit“ and refers to the unusual shape of the legumes. As the trees produce economically very important and valuable timber they are, unfortunately, often unlawfully cut down by people who want to make a profit from the sale of the timber – one container of it is being traded with for almost 23,000 €.

We would like to thank our project manager Gbati Nikabou and his tireless team for helping to preserve this threatened tree species – as if to say according to a Ugandan saying:

„The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.“

 

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