Deforestation. Drought. Starving families. We attack root causes to break the vicious cycle of poverty and deforestation, restore land and transform lives.

Estella Amador, of rural Dominican Republic, has a tremendous smile and an open heart. Yet she well knows that life for a peasant farmer in the tropics is hard. Often, clearing the rainforest for new farmland is the only means of survival.

Ten years ago Estella was desperate. She was the head of her household and responsible for children from several families. Like many slash-and-burn farmers, she was illegally cutting trees and farming on government land. She had recently been arrested and jailed.

Floresta offered her the opportunity to participate in its agroforestry loan fund. She received money from a loan to start a tree farm, as well as training in agroforestry, financial counseling, and marketing assistance, which she paid for with the loan.

Today, with her loan paid off, and a stand of fast growing nitrogen-fixing trees which she sells and uses for firewood, she has no need to cut the native trees. Her standard of living has greatly improved. Recently she was elected to serve on the governing assembly of Floresta Dominicana.