Community Forests International
organization
Community Forests International (CFI) is a charity that works with sustainability in forests, based in Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada. The organization was founded in 2007 by Jeff Schnurr. After traveling to over 35 countries and working as a Canadian tree-planter, Schnurr landed in Pemba, Tanzania. While living there, he was approached by a group of local fishermen who were interested in tree planting as a means for stabilizing the local environment.
CFI's operating model is communities need to make their own change. In April 2009, CFI helped Tanzanians in Pemba incorporate their own organization, Community Forests Pemba (CFP).
In 2010, Jeff was named one of Canada's Top 10 volunteers by the CBC Canada's Champions of Change.
Community Forests Pemba (CFP)
Traditional agriculture, charcoal production and population expansion have left natural forest systems largely depleted across the island of Pemba, Tanzania. For this reason Pembans have needed to import wood and charcoal while soil systems have been depleted.
While living in Pemba, Schnurr worked in partnership with Mbarouk Mussa Omar, a local activist to organize gardeners, tree growers and foresters in order to fight land degradation.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Community Forests International” as organization. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as organization. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16950607. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2007, 2009 and 2010.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Community Forests International”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Community Forests International primary sources, Community Forests International archive and Community research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Community Forests International”?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Community Forests International” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.