‘Refugees and Restoration’ roundtable
Land restoration in refugee camps and wider communities has enormous potential to enhance the living conditions of forcibly displaced people and the ecosystems of war-torn regions.
To coincide with the official launch of the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration and World Environment Day on 5 June 2021, we were delighted to take part in a ‘Refugees and Restoration’ roundtable hosted by Tina Teucher.
Our Operations and Communications Director, Jennie Spears, joined 10 other speakers from regenerative projects, refugee organisations and funders to discuss why and how environmental and social problems can be solved collaboratively. Specifically:
- What if we transformed refugee camps into regenerative camps, for the people’s health, wealth and peace, for the ecosystem’s regeneration?
- Why are regenerative practices a good idea for refugee camps?
- What is needed to establish restoration projects in refugee camps?
- How can projects multiply, speed up and scale?
In our experience at the Lemon Tree Trust, refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) want to engage in meaningful work just like any other human being – they do not need encouragement or motivation, but merely tools and education to get started.
That’s why our gardening projects, such as our annual home garden competitions, have not been set up with the primary objective of ecosystem restoration, but rather to help improve people’s mental health.
Gardening in this sense may be perceived as a powerful therapeutic tool, used to learn to cope with isolation, overcome traumatic experiences, and along the way, it produces beauty, belonging and food security.
Read the article summarising the roundtables
Refugees & Restoration: What if we transform refugee camps into regenerative camps?
Watch the recordings of the roundtable
Jennie speaks about the Lemon Tree Trust in session 1 at 33:30.
Session 1 Roundtable: Refugees and Restoration
Session 2 Roundtable: Refugees & Restoration
Aveen Ibrahem is Operations Manager at Lemon Tree Trust, overseeing our community gardening and cooking programmes across the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Her work supports activities in Azadî Community Garden in Domiz 1 camp, as well as outreach and coordination across the nine camps where Lemon Tree Trust currently operates. Having lived in Domiz 1 … Continued
Inside the polytunnels at the Hêvî Community Garden in Gawilan refugee camp, Garden Manager Othman Qewas carefully selects fruit trees and flowering plants grown from seed. Joined by Hamid Abdullah, Lemon Tree Trust’s Horticulture and Landscape Consultant, the plants are loaded into the car before setting off to visit families across the camp. As part of our ongoing children’s outreach programme in Gawilan camp, … Continued
Bringing together residents to celebrate the home gardens they have grown, tended and transformed over the past year, Lemon Tree Trust’s 2026 Annual Garden Competitions have taken place across nine refugee and IDP (internally displaced people) camps in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. This year’s competitions introduced a greater emphasis on welcoming new participants alongside … Continued