Fuji Oil : Planting of 100,000 trees in Western Ghana with One Tree Planted (554KB)

NEWS RELEASE

April 22, 2021

Yoshiharu Okamoto

Corporate Communication Group, Fuji Oil Holdings Inc.

Email: [e-mail]

Planting of 100,000 trees in Western Ghana with One Tree Planted

The Fuji Oil Group is partnering with One Tree Planted, a non-profit organization in the United States, to plant 100,000 trees in Western Ghana, a cacao producing area through a donation of US $100,000. This tree planting will be carried out as part of the Cacao Sustainable Procurement Commitment announced by the Group in June last year.

One Tree Planted is US-based 501(c)(3) reforestation non-profit. Started in 2014, they have more than doubled the number of trees planted year over year now working with reforestations partners in North America, South America, Asia, and

Africa. The organization planted 10 million trees in 2020 and is on target to eclipse planting 20 million trees worldwide in 2021. Their key impact pillars of air, water, biodiversity, social, climate, and health guide their efforts around the world as they work to ensure the restoration and new growth of native biodiverse forests.

Working in concert with local and community partners on the ground they reforest land degraded from industry, natural disasters like wildfires and floods, and rapid urbanization always striving for maximum environmental and social impact from job creation and community building to watershed and habitat restoration.

In 2021, One Tree Planted will manage the planting of 100,000 saplings in Western Ghana targeting cacao farms and the surrounding region. Widespread deforestation in Western Ghana is caused by competing land use, largely brought on by the discovery of oil and gas, increasing interests in rubber plantations, and rapid urbanization. These practices come with extensive forest clearing, leading to decreases in tropical biodiversity, an increase in greenhouse gas emissions, as well as a number of human impacts.

Local communities and smallholder farmers are facing the loss of land used for food crops, declining soil fertility, increased floods, and drought conditions that undermine their ability for farming and sustainable livelihood. This reforestation project in Western Ghana seeks to raise and distribute seedlings to cacao farmers to integrate into their farms, around the communities, planting along the streets and alleys, as well as in parks and recreation areas.

Trees species provided will include light shade trees, nitrogen-fixing trees, fruit trees, and non-timber forest plants (NTFPs). These trees will be introduced into the farmlands at varied intervals to enhance biodiversity, improve soil, and benefit the overall ecosystem health. The farmers will then benefit from trees planted in cacao

farms upon maturity by harvesting fruits, spices, and utilizing and selling other products as medicine. The partner in Ghana facilitates these reforestation efforts with a focus on empowering women, youth, and other vulnerable populations through these restoration efforts.

Throughout the project, One Tree Planted will work with their planting partner to receive regular updates to determine project progress, success, and to identify and overcome any potential barriers. One Tree Planted ensures that a monitoring update is submitted 12 months after the planting has been completed.

The update includes tree survival rate, jobs created through maintenance, when available monitoring, and other metrics such as canopy cover, density and diversity of regenerating trees all of which are submitted as part of the monitoring update. Upon completion of the project, their planting partners submit a report highlighting the number and species of trees planted as well as highlights of ecological, biodiversity, and community benefits.

One Tree Planted is a funder of this specific project. One Tree Planted funding covers the cost of tree saplings allowing their partners on the ground to scale their operations by allocating their other resources to site preparation and long term maintenance and monitoring of the trees. The Fuji Oil Group has donated US $100,000 to One Tree Planted for the activities of this project in Ghana which will result in planting 100,000 trees.

One of the sustainable procurement targets for cacao announced in June last year is to plant 1 million trees by 2030 as a measure to support biodiversity and climate resiliency. This initiative is the first step in that effort. We will face the challenges of the cacao production area and develop the Group's chocolate business through responsible cacao procurement.

[2020.6.4 Sustainable Procurement Commitment to Eliminate Child Labor and Prevent Deforestation] https://www.fujioilholdings.com/news/2020/1198316_2533.html

About Fuji Oil Holdings

The Fuji Oil Group is a manufacturer of plant-based food solutions in the fields of hard butters for chocolate and industrial use chocolate; confectionery and bakery ingredients including cream, margarine, and cheese-flavor ingredients; and soy ingredients. With Headquarters in Japan, the Group has 32 companies in 14 countries and employs nearly 6,000 talented people.

Using plant materials such as cacao, palm, soybeans, and shea as the main raw materials, we are pursuing new "deliciousness" that will lead to the future through the creation of a healthy food system, including sustainable raw material procurement.

https://www.fujioilholdings.com/

About One Tree Planted

One Tree Planted is a 501(c)(3) non-profit environmental charity dedicated to making it easy for individuals and businesses to give back to the environment, create a healthier climate, protect biodiversity, and ensure thriving forests for current and future generations through best in class reforestation efforts around the world. They are on target to eclipse planting 20 million trees in 2021 thanks to their phenomenal partners from Jane Goodall and Coldplay to the World Resources Institute and Fuji Oil. https://onetreeplanted.org/