This week in a HAF-managed nursery in Akrich, HAF tested the first prototype of its biodegradable sapling sack. Through its ongoing work in tree planting for offsetting carbon and women’s economic empowerment, HAF created and applied a new environmentally friendly technique in the Al Haouz province. The Al Hoauz province is a traditionally marginalized part of Morocco in the High Atlas mountains that was terribly struck by the 8 September 2023 earthquake.

The original idea to shift from plastic bags to environmentally safe biodegradable sapling sacks produced by a local women's cooperative was perfected through a project with the University of Pennsylvania's Penn International Impact Consulting. The Penn International Impact Consulting project with HAF was launched in 2022 and brought the expertise of University of Pennsylvania students to Morocco to support local projects at the intersection of environmental and gender advancement in development.

The journey to the first test of this prototype biodegradable sapling sack began soon after the September 8 earthquake when HAF began its psychosocial programming in the Al Haouz region. HAF used proven cognitive behavior and healing techniques to support local communities in their journey past trauma. This involved conducting numerous HAF participatory workshops to help communities identify and plan locally driven initiatives. Women build strong and sustainable communities and prioritize their healing, empowerment, and growth through the IMAGINE series workshop. In Al Haouz, this took the form of supporting women’s economic autonomy through the formalization of a cooperative.

Eager to empower women to define and pursue their own goals, the HAF workshop series lasted several months and included positive thinking, time management, self-confidence, administrative and financial management, and human rights. The women identified sewing skills as a possible rewarding and profitable way to build the manufacturing capacity of their cooperative.

Using initial seed funds from HAF and its funders, the cooperative set up a small manufacturing zone where the women could safely plan and execute their projects. HAF walso brought the women to Marrakech to meet with government authorities to set up and register their cooperative, ensuring that the cooperative is structured according to Moroccan law.

In the meanwhile, HAF was coordinating with its in-house environmental and forestry experts, and related government authorities, to develop an alternative to the widely used plastic bags used in tree rearing in Morocco, which take hundreds of years to decompose. HAF and partners researched various materials and the market for sapling sacks and were able to select a fabric that conformed to the needs of nurseries for smart water use, breathability, size, durability, and biodegradability while avoiding premature decomposition. Then the women will sew the fabric into sapling sacks and today the prototypes are being monitored in the HAF nursery. HAF will continue perfecting the prototype until it is ready for large-scale application in HAF nurseries, and beyond.

HAF will purchase large quantities of these sacks from the cooperative for use in this year’s tree-planting season to ensure that the cooperative’s first project will be profitable and that the revenue can be reinvested into the cooperative and community. The HAF tree planting program has led the planting, monitoring, and carbon capture of millions of trees across local communities in Morocco.

The tree planting program remains one of the most essential programs selected and developed by local communities and brings new life to arid and underused communal and private lands. The revenue from tree planting is partially reinvested in local community projects like water resources, cooperative development, and schools. The HAF tree planting program also equips local communities to fight global climate change locally by sequestering carbon.

Through the biodegradable sapling sack project, and on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the September 8 earthquake, HAF has perfected a new tree planting technique rooted in the sustainable development goals of Morocco, created a new economic opportunity for local women, and demonstrated that innovation, opportunity and local prosperity are the natural outputs the participatory approach.