Jack Butler, Ph.D High Atlas Foundation Volunteer The High Atlas Foundation produces trees. And in the process, it helps people at every step along the way. From schools and youth support centers where High Atlas tree nurseries teach disadvantaged children the healing aspects of farming while they help to grow transplants, to destination family farms

– Visionaries Then and Now, by Thomas Kimmel (Agricultural Expert), 21 March 2018, HAF Blog. • Arabic: Maghress Cawalisee, 16 April 2018. • French: HAF Blog, 14 November 2018. In the 1980’s, a solo American made a huge impact on Ouaouizerth, Morocco, an Amazigh village, located in the western High Atlas Mountains.  His name was J. Christopher Stevens, a Peace Corps.

– Conserving Traditional Crop Diversity and Wild Medicinal Plants in Morocco, by Abderrahim Ouarghidi (Agricultural Expert), Worldstage, 21 May 2018. • Arabic: Al-Watan Voice, 12 May 2018. Morocco is a key producer of fruits and vegetables for global markets thanks to the government’s push for commercialized crop production – but at what cost? This article explores how “modern” crops

– From Transit to Integration: A Moroccan Initiative for Community Development, Morocco World News, by Nathan Park (Undergraduate student and HAF Intern), 31 May 2018. • Arabic: Marrakech 24, 12 June 2018. By Nathan Park HAF Intern International migration from sub-Saharan Africa towards Europe and the United States has significantly increased over the past decade. These migration trends, especially

Implementing the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals After fifteen years of nations pursuing the Millennium Development Goals established by the United Nations, representatives of the member states, along with experts and private citizens, have defined Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to help set the course for the next fifteen years.   All told seventeen goals have been

June 23, 2015 Marrakesh, Morocco The High Atlas Foundation (HAF) recently participated in the only Moroccan festival solely dedicated to the celebration of walnuts and almonds. At the festival this year, held June 12-14, HAF showcased its organic certified walnut oils and packaged nuts produced at the walnut processing facility, located just up the street

We are in the final stages of establishing the organic agricultural value chain for HA3!  This begins with community tree nurseries and culminates in certified product – walnuts and almonds initially – entering the global market place. Here’s what it looks like: It’s an incredible achievement on the part of HAF-HA3 to have developed to

Green Sahara Furniture (GSF), based in Casablanca, Morocco, designs and builds unique, handcrafted, and sustainable furniture and wood decor items.  They use natural wood shapes and reclaimed pieces from pruned and fallen trees in many of our projects and they partner with the High Atlas Foundation regarding tree planting, irrigation, and other community development projects

The Federation of Civil Society Associations of Ourika includes seven associations.  We at HAF appreciate their dedication and so we would like to mention them individually: • Afoulki Association for Development • Association Noor for Development • Association Asrou for Development • Association Fam Lhari • Association Koji for Solidarity and Development • Tifawin Association

Morocco is being lauded today as a bastion of stability in a troubled time and region; while the future is unforeseeable, there are certainly specific factors that have helped bring about this significant situation. Three in particular are well known: the kingdom’s participatory efforts to promote human development; its process of decentralization of power; and

– Mountain Life, Addis Fortune, 14 December 2014. It may be that, more than any other terrain, mountain regions exemplify a particular paradox – that of dense poverty coexisting with a special potential for transformative prosperity. The conditions that create mountain people’s impoverishment are rooted both in local and broader contextual conditions.  Mountain areas are often blessed

  An In-Hand and Far-Out Achievement for 2015  A Letter from HAF’s President Veuillez cliquer ici pour la version française الرجاء الضغط هنا للحصول على النسخة العربية Dear Friends, From all of us at the High Atlas Foundation, we extend best wishes for health and all good things. Morocco’s model for human development creates enormous possibility for our participatory approach and organic agricultural

Give to the High Atlas Foundation, Now More than Ever The future is incredible when we look at the many municipalities in Morocco where HAF-HA3 can help organic certify and sell their agricultural product globally – for their transformational benefit. Net revenue from organic sales are dividends for marginalized farming families, and fund the people’s priority projects

Fatima Baamrani HAF Project Manager, Taroudant Province I arrived at ten o’clock at “Lycee College Tifnout” in the village of Amzerko, of the High Atlas Toubkal municipality, together with Aisha Amazal (HAF community facilitator), Khadija Himmi (tree nursery supporter) and Mahjoub Imgdouin from the Parents Association. In the beginning, Abd Aziz Fidoum, the director of

Morocco, El Haouz province: 60 thousand fruit trees to be planted and distributed at Jewish sacred site as part of High Atlas Foundation ‘One Billion Tree Campaign‘. At midday on Monday February 9th, 2015 the honorable governor of the province of El Haouz, Mr Younès El Bathaoui, together with local community members and representatives of

– Meet 2015er: Yossef Ben-Meir, U.N. Dispatch, Mythili Sampath Kumar (staff writer), 18 February 2015. This blog post is taken from an article written by Mythili Sampathkumar and published on February 18, 2015 for UN Dispatch. This is the second installment of our new “Meet a 2015er” series that profiles the women and men who are helping to

Morocco, El Haouz Province: House of Life – Intercultural Organic Tree Nursery Initiative Monday, February 9th, 2015 saw the nationwide launch of an intercultural organic agriculture initiative as the honorable Governor of El Haouz, Mr Younès El Bathaoui, presided over a very special fruit tree distribution and planting ceremony at a Jewish sacred site.  In

What development vividly means: A report about my Internship at the High Atlas Foundation by Till Dahlmüller Marrakesh, Morocco Mid February 2015 I set off for ten days in the High Atlas Mountains, an undertaking that was in keeping with the terms of my Internship at the High Atlas Foundation (HAF) in Marrakesh. It was these

On a Saturday last March, the Teachers Association of Life Sciences and the Earth, partnering with the High Atlas Foundation, completed planting 110 Argon, carob and olive trees with students at the Sidi Bouskri School in Smimou, Essaouira. With the support of the PaperSeed Foundation and the Embassy of Switzerland, Rabat, this project is also planting

It was well past nine by the time we rumbled through the city to pick up Abderrahim. The streets of the medina were only just waking up from their Sunday morning snooze, but HAF’s Project Manager had been up since six. He hopped in the front seat of the taxi, passing back loaves of warm

On the celebration of International Biodiversity Day on 22 May 2014, HAF President Dr Yossef Ben-Meir shared some of his thoughts about the preservation of biodiversity in Morocco The High Atlas Foundation partners with the High Commission for Water and Forests to advance human development with communities that neighbor Morocco’s ten national parks. This unique

– World Environment Day, Modern Ghana, 5 June 2014. World Environment Day is held annually on June 5 under UN auspices to highlight a particular area of environmental concern. The focus this year is on the unique challenges facing the world’s small islands in their battle with rising ocean levels – a far cry, it might seem,

Visite des cimetières des Trois Religions réhabilitées par le fond des ambassadeurs pour la préservation culturelle à Essaouira, le jeudi 12 juin 2014 Terre de tolérance et de brassage des cultures, Essaouira accueillera l’Ambassadeur des Etats-Unis d’Amérique, Dwight L. Bush Sr, pour sa première visite dans la ville le 12 et 13 juin 2014. Lors

The Al Haouz Province celebrated its 7th Walnut Festival this year from September 11th – 14th. It is the only Moroccan festival dedicated to walnuts with its first event taking place in 2004. Asni, located one hour south of Marrakech, is an area long known for its walnut production. In 1980 the president of the

Le 16 janvier 2014, un événement historique dans le calendrier de la Fondation du Haut-Atlas se déroulera simultanément dans différentes zones du Maroc, pour célébrer la réussite de la “campagne Un Million d’arbres“. En dix ans, nous estimons avoir aidé 50.000 personnes à sortir de la pauvreté. Le projet devrait se poursuivre indéfiniment, à un

Here at HAF, we hope that our friends, colleagues, partners and supporters have enjoyed the recent holidays and festivities of Aid el-Kebir, Hanukkah and Thanksgiving. We would like to give thanks to each and every one of you for what you have made possible for Moroccan families and communities. On Giving Tuesday, we ask you

On January 16th, 2014 HAF will plant its 1 millionth tree at over 40 sites simultaneously throughout Morocco. We want to share this milestone event with local community members as well as our thousands of individual donors worldwide. Get involved: Watch the planting event streamed live on HAF’s website at noon on Jan 16th (7am EST), and

16 January 2014 was an incredible day for community partners and local schools. HAF staff attended planting events throughout 8 provinces, traveling from school to school, community to community, overseeing tree deliveries and environmental lessons presented by local teachers and farmers. Nearly 10,000 trees were planted in the course of 1 day, setting the stage

by Rachid El Kouhen, Father of Sami (after whom Sami’s Project is named) On Jan 16, 2014 we attended the culmination of HAF’s 1 million tree planting campaign.  On that day, over 10,000 fruit trees and seeds were planted in 8 different provinces of Morocco. Sami’s Project was vital in this campaign with the participation

This 2006 planting season, the High Atlas Foundation funded the planting of 5,000 fruit trees in the Rural Communes of Ait Mohamed and Ouirgane, in the Province of Marrakech.  About 100 rural families received the trees (almond and olive), which will generate transformative socio-economic benefits after six years.  Tree planting was ranked by these communities