Time to plant trees!

Dole Organic Program is encouraging the communities to join the Company effort to become Carbon Neutral by reducing the CO2 emissions and compensate them by planting trees.

After a very successful tree planting campaign on June 5th, Environment Day, where more than 10.000 trees were planted at DOLE Organic Farms in Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Honduras and Costa Rica; people is still excited with this initiative and willing to be part of it.

Last week, at ECOPIÑAS del ARENAL, S.A., an Organic Certified Pineapple Farm owned by DOLE in Bella Vista de Cutris, 200 Kms north of San José in Costa Rica, we received the visit of Red Cross Volunteers from Ciudad Quesada (main city in northern Costa Rica).

These Red Cross Volunteers participated in an “on farm” training course about Organic Agriculture, Soil Conservation, Environmental Protection and Carbon Compensation as well as in a planting more than 500 trees in our organic certified farm.

We want to thank these brave teens for joining us in our effort to reduce our Environmental Footprint.

DOLE FOOD COMPANY, INC. ANNOUNCES WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY TREE-PLANTING AND CLIMATE CHANGE AWARENESS CAMPAIGN

Dole Food Company, Inc and its operating divisions in Latin America celebrated World Environment Day yesterday by organizing tree-planting events and environmental awareness campaigns with communities, employees and local officials to motivate participants to work toward environmental protection and mitigation of climate change.

Jonathan Bass, President of Dole Latin America stated, “I am pleased to see and share in the excitement that these World Environment Day events have produced with our employees and workers and particularly within the communities in which our production units operate. We all have an important role to play in protecting the environment”.

In Costa Rica, the event is also linked to the official opening of Dole’s organic pineapple plantation reaffirming the company’s leading position in organic agriculture and alternative production methods. The activity includes the planting of 5,000 trees provided by the National Electricity Institute as part of the Costa Rican Government’s pledge to plant 7 million trees in the year 2008. School children, local government regulators, field workers, office employees, neighbors and the region’s congresswoman will plant trees at the organic plantation to commemorate World Environment Day and demonstrate the effectiveness of private, public and community partnership.

The reforestation events are also part of Dole’s commitment to work toward carbon neutrality. It is estimated that for every ten trees approximately 5 tons of C02 per year can be captured from the atmosphere. The activities held in Honduras, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and Costa Rica serve as an opportunity for participating employees and neighbors to compensate for the emissions produced by their own vehicles, creating awareness to take action to alleviate climate change.

“This grass roots reforestation event brings many benefits including helping to reduce erosion, protecting water sources, and contributing to biodiversity. In addition, the carbon dioxide emissions from the agricultural machinery used in pineapple production will be compensated by the carbon fixed by the trees.”, commented Richard Toman, Vice-President of Pineapple Operations for Dole Fresh Fruit International Ltd.

Tree-planting at ECOPIÑAS del Arenal in Costa Rica

Tree-planting at Bananasoma Organica Farm in Ecuador

More pictures to come....