This project is counteracting the degradation of area forests and curbing their further deterioration in the following five ways:

1. Community education: project team is teaching environmental and forest stewardship to student leaders and teachers in schools at all levels, and to farmers, charcoal makers, carpenters and leaders of women's groups.

2. Alternatives to slash & burn agriculture: project team is working with area farmers to identify and then plant soil-enriching plants and quick-growing trees to add economic value to fields already in cultivation, thus making unnecessary further destruction of forested hillsides and making burning less economical a method of clearing land for planting.

3. Reforestation: project team is planting 1,500 fruit and forest trees in two particularly deforested areas on the edge of the town of Dalaba.

4. Fighting bush fires: project team is establishing a network among locals for surveillance and for putting out fires that are started intentionally or unintentionally.

5. Eco-tourism: project team is completing the development of the Miriam Makeba Botanical Garden, adding seedlings to its nursery, building a gazebo and installing benches for receiving visitors and students, and securing the area with a fence. In addition to being an eco-tourist site itself, the Garden will be a place for the education of locals in environmental stewardship, encouraging them in ways of life that will ultimately make Dalaba an eco-tourist destination.