Local community engagement is vital to our large scale planting, and then supporting the planting site growth. Local communities provide fire support teams, and maintain forestry practices that keep these planting sites healthy. Without community support it is common to see a forest burned by fire, or harvested to sell at local markets. The dedication from local support teams is what makes lasting impact.
It's important to us that our planting sites continue to grow and develop ecosystems long after we plant them. A major threat to the longevity of a forest is a government that is actively harvesting forests to create industry, or subsidized housing land. We find regions where both local, and national governments are supportive of our planting efforts which enables us to create thriving ecosystems.
In most cases, reforestation will not start without outside funding. Our outside funding provides a jump start for tree planting to begin and temporarily sustained. However, the end goal in all of these locations is to create a self generating ecosystem that is not reliant primarily on outside funding. While the forests get replenished, operations such as farming, fishing, and trade making are able to happen once again with the local villages taking point on the efforts.