HEY YA"LL ... I'm not crazy like people told me ... I am Tree Jenny

Hey Ya'll,

I am Tree Jenny... Jennifer Leigh Smith...

About 19 years ago I went on a vacation to Costa Rica because i had just "won" a big environmental law case in Louisiana where I was working as a young lawyer. Our team won an environmental racism case and well, it depressed me. Why would winning depress me you might ask? Because I felt like I was on the wrong side of the argument. We were defending the polyethylene (plastics) plant (BASF WYANDOTTE) and I had to find case law and depose witnesses looking for an "out" for their employment practices which tended to reveal they hired African Americans to only do janitorial jobs instead of higher up better pay positions. The plastics plant was using the propaganda of "creating jobs" in their reasoning for building the plant in a primarily African American neighborhood.

When we won the case, my law firm couldn't help but see my conflicted conscience. Yep, I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve. So, in an effort to help me "feel better", they sent me on an all expense paid vacation to anywhere I wanted to go. I had always heard about forward thinking Costa Rica, so I jaunted off on a 10 day trip! Little did either of us know, I would be offered a job at the very first private National Wildlife Refuge during that trip, not to mention a cushy free gorgeous house to live, complete with a vehicle .

What?? The Universe was calling me to my path and I heard the call loud and clear. I walked back into the office, all tan and rejuvenated and proceeded to quit my high paying job, which took 6 months to really exit so I wouldn't leave anyone in a lurch. [Jenny y Chica.jpg]

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Of course, they all told me "I WAS CRAZY", that I would get kidnapped or killed, that I'd come running back. I sold and gave away everything I owned, including my huge book collection, which I kinda regret, but oh well. I packed up my new little BLUE HEALER doggie "Chica" and hugged my family and friends "goodbye" and flew off into the great unknown, a single woman looking for deeper purpose with a touch of adventure!

And the rest is "herstory".... The early years I worked almost "for free" for a conservation organization educating communities about the importance of biological corridors. I was pretty close to fluent in Spanish from my childhood education and my DAD always grew trees on our land in Louisiana.

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So when I noticed how the locals did not really plant trees on all the deforested land I could see, I started asking questions. Soon thereafter, I started one of the first private reforestation companies focusing on planting high biodiversity trees in a careful forest matrix. I learned little by little from campesinos, biologists and agroforesters. I went back to school twice. Now I am a Forestry Engineer and Certified Carbon Dioxide auditor.

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I am also an adventure freak and a pretty tough chick if I may say so myself, with a feminine side alive and well who cares as much for developing empowered local communities as for the trees themselves.
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So far, I can lay claim to planting and maintaining over 530,000 trees with my teams on more than 300 farms and public spaces in Costa Rica. I know from first hand experience that the work is about way more than planting trees.
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Please stay tuned to my stories and hear all about it. I cant wait to share fun and "educational" stuff with ya'll! MUCHAS GRACIAS!!

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