Maderas Nobles – Invest in planting trees.
by Petz Scholtus, Barcelona on 10.21.05
Have you got some spare cash lying around that you just don’t know what to do with? Well no, not many of us have, but when, hopefully, the time comes for you to invest your hard earned savings we are sure you would like to invest with an ethical organisation, rather than unwittingly funding the usual suspects such as the Arms Trade, Tobacco Industry or Human Rights Abuses. If you have been searching as we have, you are maybe aware there aren’t that many ethical investment options out there, but recently we have found an interesting alternative to corporate banking: investing in long-term hardwood forestation. With us all being enthusiastic Treehuggers we were particularly excited to find Maderas Nobles De La Sierra de Segura at the Ecology Fair in Valencia this month.
Their organisation proposes a system of investment where you buy a certain number of trees (the price includes their cultivation and care taking) and over a 20 year period, (their suggested time frame), you will see returns of between 7% and 21% annually.
Maderas Nobles tell us that us that in the last 35 years the value of high quality hardwoods in Europe have risen approximately 11% yearly, therefore they are an excellent natural product to invest in. And when the time comes for you to cash in your crop not only will you see some good returns from your initial investment, but you will also have contributed greatly to the health of the environment.
They have started by planting a Walnut forest in the Alcaraz region of Albacete in south eastern Spain. and give the following statistics for the contribution of each tree to the environment over a period of a twenty years: 10 000 kg of organic material which will fertilize the earth and prevent soil erosion; 400 000 litres of water, 28 000 m3 of oxygen which is enough to allow a person to breathe for 80 years; 25.000 m3 of CO2 helping to clean the air and slowing down the heating up of the earth. While other people are paying organisations such as Future Forests to plant trees for them, Maderas Nobles are offering financially minded environmentalists an investment option with several benefits. Not only can you invest in conserving forestation by planting more trees, you will also be investing in the lives of people and wildlife who will directly benefit from the trees and last, but not least, you are investing in the security of your own financial future. It seems like a win win win situation! ::Maderas Nobles
[Leonora & Petz]
The website seems to be down and the article (which sounds more like a press release) is unclear, how exactly are they making this return? Is it a logging operation that repopulates at the same time or is it some other sort of venture. The article makes it seem as if they are making an 11% annual return just off of planting trees, which I don't really understand.