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• Good Gifts Catalogue Funds the Planting of 35,000 Mpingo Welcome to the website of the African Blackwood Conservation Project (ABCP). The aim of this project is to help replenish this valuable tree in Tanzania. Most people will not have knowingly seen blackwood but almost everyone will have heard it, for it is the premier wood of choice for fine concert-quality woodwind instruments such as clarinets, oboes and flutes, as well as being used in the manufacture of bagpipes. Blackwood is also the finest material available today for producing ornamental turning. In its African homeland, it is used to make intricate and highly detailed carvings, and plays a vital role in the ecology of the East African savannah. |
 Contributions from the Good Gifts Catalogue are funding Mpingo planting at Makuyuni, on the eastern lowlands below Mount Kilimanjaro. Kibo and Mwenza peaks are visible in the background in this view from the site. Workers first cleared a plot of acacia thorn bushes and then planted 12,000 mpingo seedlings, and they are shown weeding the plot in this photo. See a photo slide show of this project here. |
Why Plant Trees? Environmental Woes in Tanzania Point to the Need for Projects Like the ABCP! This website documents our efforts to perpetuate this remarkable natural resource in supporting the work of Tanzanian botanist and conservationist, Sebastian Chuwa. Despite its importance as a world timber there have been few conservation efforts to replenish the species. Although it is not yet on the endangered list the ABCP is taking efforts now to help assure that eventuality will not occur. To learn more about the wood, its homeland, this project, the people who are trying to make it happen and how you can help, click on the links in the banner above or the sitemap below. You may also search this site for specific terms. The ABCP also replants other African trees, such as coffee, mahogany, and camphor, as well as its flagship species, African blackwood. The ABCP is a volunteer-staffed, US non-profit 501(c)(3) organization which has received funding from private donations from concerned individuals and additionally from the generous support of the Cottonwood Foundation, the Lindbergh Foundation, British Petroleum Tanzania, New England Biolabs Foundation and the Good Gifts Catalogue. Sebastian Chuwa, Tanzanian co-ordinator of the ABCP, has also been honored for his conservation and environmental education efforts on behalf of African blackwood and other African tree species with the Spirit of the Land Award at the 2002 Winter Olympics, the Rolex Awards for Enterprise in 2002, Condé Nast Traveler Magazine World Savers Environmental Award in 2006, The National Arbor Day Foundation's J. Sterling Morton Award and Yahoo! in 2007. 100% of the funds donated will be applied directly towards the onsite work of the ABCP in Tanzania, and all administrative costs of the project will be covered by the US coordinators.We are offering the "Tree of Music" video which shows the importance of this species in the field of music and describes the threats which face it, with details available here.
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ABCP Website created and maintained by James E.
Harris, © 2000.
All photos copyright © 2005 by Sebastian Chuwa unless otherwise noted.
Last revised 20 November 2008.
You are visitor number since
12 May 1999.
