Contributor: Sann Htet Lin

Sann Htet Lin talking in front of the tree nursery he and the other members of his community have built. Photo: Benny Manser/Mercy Corps

Some of the Mercy Corps team in the delta region who are helping community groups like Sann Htet Lin's grow. Photo: Benny Manser/Mercy Corps

I’m 19 years old and live in Bokone village, in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwaddy Delta. Together with eight other people from my village, I am part of a community organization called Sein Pyae Aye Yar. In English, it means Full Green Ayeyarwaddy Delta.

With help from Mercy Corps, we’ve been working since 2010 to help make our land green again, preserving what trees and mangroves we have left and replacing the many that have been cut for firewood.

We’re only a small group, but we’re doing everything we can to help our village. As the trees and mangrove forests around our village disappear, people have been left without shelter from cyclones and storms and are at more risk from floods; at the same time, they have to travel far or pay more for wood to use for cooking and boiling water as supplies become even more scarce.

So like other groups across the Delta, with funds and lots of training from Mercy Corps, we’ve started to make our own special stoves that burn less wood, to grow and plant tree saplings to replace those that have been cut, and to work with the people of our village so we all know more about looking after the environment around us.

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