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Planting Change Keba with a cashew apple

by Tim L. Tetzlaff, Naples Zoo Director of Conservation from TREES had taught Keba the life changing Forest Garden
Tim Tetzlaff and John Leary at the zoo and I live in. Even tirelessly working the hard ground, Keba only how much each crop earned including the tart, nutrient-rich
reaking bread goes hand in hand with
model of farming using trees and provided him the seedlings.
telling stories. I first heard about Keba
Touring Keba’s mature garden, John told me he was asking
BMbengue years ago dining under a
chickee here in Naples – and how trees forever
apple the locals love to eat from cashew trees. I’ll let John’s words
changed his life. Keba lives in Senegal about a
speak for themselves: “When I asked Keba how much he sells the
four-hour drive from the capital city of Dakar,
but an unfathomable distance from the world you cashew apples for, his solemn, chiseled face breaks into a smile
that stretches ear to ear. ‘I give away more than 150 pounds of
the cashew apples every season to the kids in the village.’ Pride,
earned about $200 a year farming peanuts. An income so low it
meant he and his family would regularly not eat for a day or more.
of a man who once couldn’t feed his own family.” Keba restored
Keba’s plight reminds me of another man I heard about eating
his degraded land, improved biodiversity, fed his family every
under a tree along Uganda’s Kampala-Gulu Highway. My dining
day, and greatly multiplied his income. All in just four years! Can
companion told me about detaining a man who hadn’t been able generosity, compassion, and hope all beamed forth from the face
to afford meat for months. His wife had just given birth and was you imagine this father no longer dreading the eyes of a hungry
desperately weak, so he headed into a national park where he daughter, but embracing a smiling child? What a magnificent
illegally snared an antelope for them to eat. With seasoned meat change!
still conspicuously in my mouth, my friend pointedly asked me, Replicating Keba’s story many times over, TREES has planted
“What would you do with such a man? Would you jail this new over 300 million trees since 1989. Naples Zoo has funded over
father for poaching and doom his family – or would you side with 900,000 of those trees since 2009 and we’re working diligently
your humanity?” to cross the one million mark this year to help more people and
The challenge facing me and all my conservation colleagues – wildlife. We plant one tree for each student on a field trip and four
indeed all of us – is to work these problems upstream, well before trees with each membership sold or renewed – and we hosted a
a parent or a ranger is forced into such excruciating choices. I’m fundraiser with Ankrolab Brewing Company that planted more
grateful Naples Zoo partners with many who have risen to that than 17,000 trees. Efforts like these enable Neapolitans to support
occasion, which brings us back to Senegal. My friend John Leary our programs that benefit the land, its people, and wildlife.
told me about meeting Keba when he was the Executive Director If you’d like to be part of making more moments like these, contact me
of Trees for the Future (TREES). Years before, community trainers at tim@napleszoo.org. Change for the better is truly possible.

Forest Garden in process showing the progress in just three years.
December 2014 April 2016 December 2017

Life in Naples | April 2023 27