Plant-for-the-Planet is a free, transparent platform for natural restoration, i.e. for planting trees: First and foremost, this is an online platform created by children and young people who want to encourage as many people as possible to plant trees around the world. Trees are certainly not the only solution to all climate problems, but they buy us, humans, time in the fight against the climate crisis that threatens the future of us all.
Plant-for-the-Planet’s approach is that literally, anyone can use our tools to help save the future of us humans on this planet. Our goal is to plant one trillion trees, if possible, by 2030. Planting trees is simple, natural, efficient, and – most importantly – scalable worldwide. Trees aren’t just beautiful, they also give us our air to breathe, filter urban dust, measurably cool their surroundings, store water, protect from erosion and, most importantly, get CO₂ out of the air. Science proves that planting trees is a very effective way to capture CO₂.
The children who started Plant-for-the-Planet have now become young adults who have taken up the fight against the climate crisis with digital tools. Plant-for-the-Planet’s most recent in-house developments are IT tools: the Plant-for-the-Planet.org platform and the TreeMapper.app. With these applications, people around the world can plant trees from their sofa and watch these trees grow, as it were, from the same sofa, even though they are thousands of kilometers away
The new TreeMapper.app sets standards in monitoring and is designed to increase transparency in forest restoration. This way, donors know exactly when and where their trees were planted. Both apps are available for IOS and Android and are open source. So with these applications, anyone worldwide can transparently and traceably start donating trees or even create a new forest right away. For example, the software group Salesforce uses the platform or viewers of the TV station SAT.1 donated over 1.5 million trees in a good week.
The foundation of Plant-for-the-Planet are the Climate Justice Ambassadors. Children and young people sensitize each other to the challenges of the climate crisis in one-day workshops, so-called academies, around the world. Plant-for-the-Planet has organized and financed 1,600 such academies since 2008, in 75 countries with 92,000 participants. The ambassadors are intrinsically motivated to engage themselves for climate justice. They advocate for global solutions to the climate crisis and learn to argue the benefits of global solutions using the example of global reforestation. They invite adults to work together and intergenerationally for their future.
Particularly committed Climate Justice Ambassadors are individually supported through further workshops in small groups, conducted by renowned coaches. Once a year, the international ambassadors meet for a global Youth Summit. There, ambassadors from all over the world can get to know each other, network and plan joint projects. This is how the young people started at the first Youth Summit in May 2015 www.climatestrike.net. The young Climate Justice Ambassadors take a clear stand on one of the most urgent problems of our time and network worldwide.
The young people of Plant-for-the-Planet have achieved something quite amazing: They bring hope back into the seemingly hopeless climate crisis: They do not remain in the alarmism of the looming catastrophe, but show very viable and smart ways in their own interest, how we humans can use trees and smartphones in the fight against climate crisis. The children and young people don’t talk, they act: In the first 200 days of 2021 alone, they managed to get 14.2 million trees donated through their platform, and 100% of all donations went to 143 planting projects worldwide. They didn’t create this platform to make money, but to win the future. Their vision: to motivate people around the world to use the innovative transparent tree donation platform to drive the global renaturation of lost forests.
Plant-for-the-Planet is an internet platform that offers restoration initiatives worldwide the chance to raise funds and start a tree-planting movement. The goal is one trillion additional trees. Currently, more than 170 planting initiatives worldwide use the platform and plant mainly in the countries of the global south, where the trees not only grow faster and capture more CO₂, but also offer many additional benefits, such as jobs, prosperity and security.
The foundation, established by Felix Finkbeiner, has also taken on the responsibility of restoring and protecting its own forest areas. With the help of the German foundation and other supporters, the non-profit Mexican sister organization Plant-for-the-Planet A.C. became the owner of a total of 239 km2 of forest areas that have been plundered to varying degrees of intensity: They are located in the Mexican state of Campeche on the Yucatán Peninsula, near the village of Constitución. Plant-for-the-Planet has promised, in addition to the platform, to plant 100 million trees itself. This will be done on such degraded areas, i.e. abandoned cattle farms or as enrichment plantations in forests, plundered mostly through illegal logging, and the subsequent protection of these restored areas.
It is important to realize at this point that Plant-for-the-Planet does not want to create a plantation with a precisely defined number of tree individuals that will still exist exactly like this after many years. Our goal is to remove carbon dioxide from the air, and the best way to do that is with a stable ecosystem that keeps growing on its own. In other words, it keeps growing and binding more and more CO₂.
With the donated trees – we plant up to 30 different species in Yucatán – we lay the foundation for such an ecosystem, which due to its biodiversity is less vulnerable to some of the consequences of the climate crisis such as drought, fire, floods, (invasive) insects and fungi. The forests we plant should take as much carbon dioxide out of the air as possible for as long as possible, and preferably more and more. And this is only possible with stable ecosystems that are resilient to almost any attack due to their biodiversity.
But: of course, we take the documentation of planted trees very seriously. See question 4.
When selecting trees to plant, it is critical that they are native tree species that can cope with prevailing natural conditions such as soil conditions, drought and flooding. So we only plant trees that have always been native to the region. You can find out which specific tree species are planted in our planting reports at https://a.plant-for-the-planet.org/annual-reports/.
We are constantly trying to increase the number of tree species planted, because the highest possible ecological diversity goes hand in hand with the stability of an ecosystem. Since the 2021 season, we have therefore been planting up to 30 different tree species. In doing so, we are guided by intact forests in the surrounding area and analyze very precisely which tree species occur there.
Our team of nine ecologists develops a restoration plan for each coming planting season that is tailored to the specific conditions of the area to be restored, i.e. selection of tree species, planting distances, number of seedlings, tree communities, i.e. which species harmonize particularly well with each other.
The 2021 restoration plan was reviewed and approved by the independent Supervision Restoration Expert Board, composed of four external experts from Germany, Mexico and the USA, at the end of June 2021.
Basically, our overall strategy is aimed at restoring a near-natural forest. From the initial focus on the individual tree, we now concentrate on the entire ecosystem.
See also the following links:
Our planting strategy: https://blog.plant-for-the-planet.org/de/2021/pflanzstrategie-und-renaturierungsplan-2021/
Our ecologists: https://blog.plant-for-the-planet.org/de/2021/neuigkeiten-vom-feldteam-in-yucatan/
Our transparency report:
Yes, but: You have to think of our trees as a kind of ecological start-up financing for an intact forest ecosystem, which is therefore able to permanently serve as a carbon dioxide reservoir. Of course, we cannot guarantee that every donated tree will survive. With a tree, we are dealing with a living being and not with an industrially manufactured product. But we guarantee that we will do everything we can to ensure that even if the individual donated tree does not survive, its surviving ‘colleagues’ will contribute in their entirety to the creation of a new wonderful forest that will provide the habitat for a great diversity of species. Our goal is to create forest ecosystems that will continue to grow and filter CO₂ from the air in perpetuity. For the benefit of mankind.
One indication that we are on the right track with our approach to creating ecosystems is the return of more and more wild animals: Three employees have already observed jaguars in the forests we have reforested. And of course, we are very happy about that!
Around the village of Constitución in the Mexican state of Campeche, Plant-for-the-Planet is the largest employer. In addition to the ecologists, up to 140 employees work in the restoration at the same time. They all ensure that everything runs smoothly, from feeding the team to sowing, planting and caring for the trees, as well as maintenance work on paths and vehicles. Our employees enjoy reliable working conditions, above-average wages and benefits. Since 2020, we have significantly expanded our team of ecologists: The employees come from different countries of the American continent to scientifically accompany the renaturation measures.
In some of the areas we are restoring, the most valuable and oldest trees were usually cut down by previous owners. It is important to know that 50% of the biomass of a forest is concentrated in only 5% of the trees. Therefore, it can be useful to plant in existing forests, for example, to increase biodiversity. This is called “enrichment planting” and it helps to strengthen the ecological “immune system” of the forest system. In order to make the ecologically right decisions, Plant-for-the-Planet employs a team of nine ecologists (2021). Its task is to ensure that the increase in biomass and thus CO₂ sequestration is ecologically sound, while at the same time increasing biodiversity.
Yes, 5 per mille of our area at the borders to neighbors fell victim to their slash-and-burn agriculture. Unfortunately, slash-and-burn agriculture is still an everyday occurrence in Mexico, including on the Yucatán Peninsula and especially in the state of Campeche. And also on some neighboring properties to the Plant-for-the-Planet areas. This is particularly frustrating for our donors and employees.
The area under the responsibility of the Mexican non-profit Plant-for-the-Planet Association covers almost 239 km2 (23,872.61 hectares) of land. To date, we have suffered two fires affecting a total of 114 hectares, or 5 per thousand of our land. In April 2018, a fire from a neighboring property spread to the northwestern portion of the Las Américas 1 renourishment area, and in November 2020, another 20 hectares burned. Fire from neighbors who were clearing large areas on their lands likely inadvertently spread to the Las Américas 1 and Las Américas 2 foundation lands, which are part of our restoration efforts. Both areas affected by fires have been or are being reforested.
Global Forest Watch shows that Campeche lost 779,000 hectares of trees between 2001 and 2020, representing a 17% decline in tree cover since 2000 and 295 million tons of CO₂ emissions. Of all Mexican states, the state of Campeche suffered the greatest forest loss between 2001 and 2020 (see https://gfw.global/2WpAc7b). It is therefore all the more important that we do not let ourselves be discouraged by setbacks and plant even more trees.
Campeche, one of three states on the Yucatán Peninsula, is one of the world’s so-called biodiversity hotspots and loses tens of thousands of hectares of natural forest every year, mostly through illegal logging. The areas we are restoring there are tropical dry forests, one of the most threatened forest ecosystems in the world. In 2018 alone, Campeche lost about 40,000 hectares of natural forest and as much as 53,000 hectares in 2019 (see Global Forest Watch https://bit.ly/3cQuO3m). The 2019 loss alone is equivalent to 12.5 million tons of sequestered carbon dioxide (CO2).
Global Forest Watch also shows that Campeche lost 779,000 hectares of trees between 2001 and 2020, representing a 17% decline in tree cover since 2000 and 295 million tons of CO₂ emissions.
Of all Mexican states, the state of Campeche suffered the greatest forest loss between 2001 and 2020 (see https://gfw.global/2WpAc7b).
So our work is more important than ever: Plant-for-the-Planet planted a good 4,000 hectares with 6.2 million trees in the Mexican state of Campeche alone between 2015 and 2020.
The WEF Global Risk Report 2020 identifies Latin America and the Caribbean, where the Yucatán Peninsula is located, as regions that are particularly vulnerable to the effects of the climate crisis. This is due to a combination of factors including the lack of an effective water management plan, rampant deforestation, and insufficient financial resources to put in place a package of measures to address the impacts of the climate crisis. Between 2001 and 2019, 186,000 hectares of trees were lost in Campeche State due to heavy rains and hurricanes alone. That’s why in 2013, the nonprofit Plant-for-the-Planet Foundation, through its sister nonprofit Plant-for-the-Planet A.C., decided to begin reforestation efforts in the state of Campeche, on the Yucatan Peninsula.
Plant-for-the-Planet has the seedlings of up to 30 different tree species grown in an established tree nursery and then plants them out after four to six months. Planting takes place during the rainy season (around July to December), because the young plants have a particularly good chance of survival then. In the first few months, it is crucial to keep short the grass, which grows quickly and up to two meters high and competes with the seedlings for sunlight, water and nutrients.
No less important is the fact that we provide our employees with good training and pay them above the standard rate, instead of the daily wages, piecework payments or bonuses that are often the norm for plantations. This is because the satisfaction of all employees, who identify strongly with the trees, also contributes to the focus on the quality of the planting and care of the trees. Many of our employees regard the young trees almost like their children, whom they cherish and for whom they feel responsible.
As soon as a tree starts to grow, it absorbs carbon dioxide and thus acts against the climate crisis. Its biomass consists of about 45% of the atom carbon, i.e. ‘C’. The CO₂ molecule consists of one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms with a molecular weight of 44, because C has a molecular weight of 12 and oxygen one of 16. When a tree has reached a biomass of 1,000 kg, it has converted 1,650 kg of CO₂ from the atmosphere through photosynthesis (1000×0.45×44/12).
In the early years, we planted only eight different tree species, because at that time we were thinking of taking the wood later as timber. Since 2019, we have changed our strategy and currently plant up to 30 different tree species in Yucatán: Among them are varieties from the mahogany family, almond trees, white gum trees, trumpet trees, as well as various utility and fruit trees: You can find more about our tree species here: https://a.plant-for-the-planet.org/de/yucatan
No, our goal is to renaturalize ecosystems. Plantations do not do justice to this in many respects. They are mostly monocultures and not resilient enough to withstand the challenges of the climate crisis with heat and floods, and are also susceptible to fungal and insect infestation. The goal of Plant-for-the-Planet is to use trees to lay the foundation for stable ecosystems, as they stabilize on their own and grow ever larger. And thus convert more and more carbon dioxide from the air into wood. We plant as many different tree species as possible, thus spreading and minimizing the risks of the climate crisis. In the first years 2015 – 2018, we had planned to use the wood later as well, i.e. to store C in durable wood products, for example in houses, and thus replace reinforced concrete, which is responsible for 11% of global CO₂ emissions. That’s why we planted only eight different species. In 2019, we changed the strategy on the Yucatán Peninsula and are planting natural forest there.
At the end of the planting season – i.e. in December each year – the information on all newly planted trees is sent to CONAFOR (Comisión Nacional Forestal) together with the https://a.plant-for-the-planet.org/de/yucatan-reports. This government agency is responsible for the conservation and restoration of Mexico’s forests and participates in the development of plans, programs and guidelines for sustainable forestry development.
Plant-for-the-Planet has undergone a very dynamic development, similar to a successful garage startup: While in the beginning it was more of a competition between students who wanted to outbid each other in planting trees, Plant-for-the-Planet inherited the Billion Tree Campaign from UNEP in 2011 and developed a modern digital platform from it.
On the platform, restoration organizations that reach certain standards can present their projects free of charge, make visible the areas they want to restore and collect donations. 100% of the donors’ donations go to non-profit restoration organizations. The children, i.e. the Climate Justice Ambassadors of the first hour, are today young adults who enable “planting trees from the sofa” worldwide with digital tools.
The organizational structure of Plant-for-the-Planet has to meet these requirements, especially for the non-profit Mexican sister organization, which is responsible for a large part of the donations from Germany. In the past, we focused on planting trees rather than writing annual reports, and for good reason. But we have experienced ourselves how easily enormous efforts for a good cause can be called into question if they are not fully comprehensible. We also need to learn to talk more about our work: We have resolved to communicate much more transparently.
We have a team of nine ecologists working for us in Constitución, and they are developing restoration strategies for each of our sites, showing different levels of degradation. We also operate our own research station on a 91-hectare research site near Constitución. Researchers from ETH, Zurich, Imperial College, London and other universities are involved there. At the same time, we seek advice from independent experts. We share all this knowledge with our partners so that we, as humanity, can restore as many forests as possible as quickly as possible. We should never forget that every year we lose 10 billion trees and thus valuable CO₂ stores on earth.
A key feature of the Plant-for-the-Planet success story are the so-called academies with an average of 60 participants. Here, children and young people between the ages of nine and twelve raise each other’s awareness of global solutions to the climate crisis and train to become Climate Justice Ambassadors. An academy is a one-day workshop. In addition to facts about the climate crisis, the children and young people also receive rhetorical training so that they can speak unabashedly and convincingly in front of adults and public figures. During the pandemic, we also developed an online format.
The mission of a Climate Justice Ambassador is to educate others about the potential of planting trees: That trees buy us time in the fight against climate crisis and are not themselves the solution to climate problems. In the time gained, we need to reduce CO₂ emissions to zero. Neither the 1.5°C limit, nor the 2.0°C limit can be maintained without trees.
Currently (2021), there are 92,000 trained Climate Justice Ambassadors in 75 countries. And the number is growing.
Many former Ambassadors are now represented in all the key bodies of the Board of Trustees, the Board of Directors and the General Assembly of the Mexican Association. These young people are also driving the development of our digital platform and app. The fight against the climate crisis begins with our smartphones. And these young people have long since recognized that.
The TreeMapper is a smartphone application for monitoring trees, which is aimed at planting and restoration organizations worldwide. With the app, they can easily document their tree plantings by storing geo-data, the time of planting and also the tree species planted. The TreeMapper.App has been in use since July 2021 after two years of development https://www1.plant-for-the-planet.org/yucatan. The app was not developed by a large software company, but by our in-house IT team.
The app is also exciting from a donor’s point of view: even if the donated trees are thousands of kilometers away: Not only do the donors receive an electronic message about the location and time of planting, but they can also watch their trees grow from the comfort of their sofa, because the growth of the trees is documented at regular intervals and can be viewed via the app.
No, because the typical vegetation type in this area of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula is Tropical Dry Forest – a special form of rainforest. It is characterized by the alternation of rainy and dry seasons. This allows us to plan our work well throughout the year. The operations are divided seasonally into planting preparation, planting and maintenance. We plant exclusively during the rainy season, that is, only after it has definitely begun and it has rained continuously for five consecutive days in July or August. And we also stop planting one month before the expected end of the rainy season, in November or December, so that the young seedlings have optimal conditions and the survival rate is as high as possible.
During the dry season, from about January to June, the staff take care of the planted trees and prepare the restoration for the period from July to December. Care also includes removing fast-growing grasses between the young tree seedlings that compete for light, water and nutrients.
Unfortunately, the climate crisis is not stopping at our planting areas on the Yucatán Peninsula. Our remedy against fires and floods: biodiversity. We plant as many different native tree species as possible (currently up to 30), thereby spreading the risks of the climate crisis across many different tree species and minimizing them.
But we are also already directly impacted by the effects of the climate crisis. In 2020, the state of Campeche was hit by several hurricanes and tropical storms that caused severe flooding and caused significant damage https://bit.ly/3aBxpvr.
At the height of the season, 54% (~651 ha) of our Las Américas 1 restoration site was flooded, leaving 763,257 trees planted in 2015 and 2016 underwater for months.
In December 2013, Plant-for-the-Planet A.C., Mexico purchased this Las Américas 1 site and in 2015 continued the restoration project with the same tree species that the previous owner had started there. The previous owner received financial support for this from CONAFOR, the Mexican government’s national forestry agency.
Plant-for-the-Planet also hired forest engineer Carlos Luna in 2014. We had planted unsuitable seedlings there for a potential flood area and no one had recognized it.
To compensate for the damage done, forest engineer Carlos Luna is providing us with one million saplings free of charge and with the support of Plant-for-the-Planet, Mexico and Plant-for-the-Planet, Germany we will plant one new tree for every damaged tree by the end of 2020, 20% in the same location and 80% in other regions.
We have also massively expanded the team of ecologists. Our nine-member team of ecologists from Plant-for-the-Planet A.C., Mexico, led by the scientific director of the Plant-for-the-Planet Foundation Germany, Dr. Leland Werden, has already developed the restoration plan for the current 2021 season, including soil investigation, species selection, and GIS study, and had it approved by the newly established, independent panel of experts.
However, it must be clear to all of us that we will always remain powerless against the effects of the climate crisis (floods, fires,storms, ….), while at the same time we must become better and share our knowledge worldwide.
Cf. our Transparency Report: https://bit.ly/3zmEbQF
Basically, Plant-for-the-Planet is a platform that invites planting organizations worldwide to replant or restore forests. Currently, on plant-for-the-planet.org, more than 170 initiatives from Australia to Bolivia, Ghana and Malawi to the United States of America are fighting the climate crisis by planting trees.
The area in Mexico’s Yucatán is one of Plant-for-the-Planet’s own six planting and restoration projects itself. At the same time, it is also the largest of these six Plant-for-the-Planet areas, covering 23,872.61 hectares.
The Mexican non-profit Plant-for-the-Planet A.C. holds ownership of 23,872.61 hectares, of which 10,688.61 hectares are held through Mexican civil law and 13,184.00 hectares are held through Mexican agricultural law.
We grow the seedlings for our trees from carefully selected seeds in a nursery in Chuina, Campeche, where up to four million seedlings grow at any one time. Of course, we need a good 20% more seeds than we actually want to plant because not every seed grows into a plantable seedling. Our ecologists have to collect 25% of the seeds themselves in intact forests, because not all seed varieties can be purchased.
(Cf. Transparency Report: https://bit.ly/3zmEbQF
For each of our restoration projects that solicit donations on our platform, we have deposited satellite images that go back years and current ones, so that the visitor can see the change on a time travel. https://www1.plant-for-the-planet.org/yucatan
Satellite images, however, have only limited informative value about the vegetation of an area. Often the images are outdated, and in addition, it is often not possible to distinguish a “bush from a tree” from space, unless they were high-resolution satellite images.
To increase transparency for the donor, the young people of Plant-for-the-Planet have developed the TreeMapper.App. It automatically sends the geo-data, the time of planting and the tree species to the donors.
The app can also be used to document the growth of the trees. Via the geo-data, the restoration organization can also take drone images, which can replace the expensive high-resolution satellite images. In this sense, with the technology now developed by Plant-for-the-Planet, all the conditions are in place for people to actually soon be able to watch the trees grow from their sofas.
Yes, of course, because usually very specific valuable tree species and especially the largest, most valuable and oldest trees have been felled and plundered. 50% of the biomass of a forest is concentrated in only 5% of the trees. Moreover, these tree species are almost completely absent from the ecosystem. By replacing exactly these tree species, we selectively enrich the biodiversity and strengthen the forest ecosystem from within. This is what ecologists call enrichment planting. For only if maximum species diversity prevails the forest will be able to withstand the effects of the climate crisis. A study from Panama in 2009 is very helpful here, as it attests to the very high CO₂ effect of enrichment planting: https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss1/art31/
Of course not. Plant-for-the-Planet currently owns 23,872.61 hectares of land on the Yucatán Peninsula, but that will not be enough for 100 million trees. Therefore, our ecologists are constantly searching for suitable areas for further restoration.
Areas that are not owned by Plant-for-the-Planet are also particularly interesting because they offer the possibility of involving the local population in forest and climate protection. However, a prerequisite for the restoration of these areas is the registration of their long-term use as renaturated forest areas in the land register and the long-term protection of the restored forest areas.
The Plant-for-the-Planet Foundation, or the previously existing Plant-for-the-Planet student initiative, has financed the planting of a total of 22.9 million trees since its inception in 2007 through Dec. 31, 2020, of which 15.1 million trees have already been planted and the other 7.8 million trees will be planted in 2021 and 2022. Of these 15.1 million trees, 6.2 million have been planted by the employees of the non-profit Plant-for-the-Planet A.C. on its own land, near the town of Constitución in the state of Campeche, and 8.9 million more trees have been planted mostly by small farmers in Mexico and in many other parts of the world on their own land.
Since the launch of the platform www.plant-for-the-planet.org, visitors have been able to independently choose among 170 planting and renaturation projects and have donated to other organizations for an additional 5.9 million trees. Because each organization plants at different times of the year, we developed the TreeMapper.App to automatically notify donors: “The 10 trees you donated to us on December 24, 2020, were planted today on August 26, 2021, in the X/Y coordinates.”
In the first 200 days of 2021, donors have already donated 14.2 million more trees through the www.plant-for-the-planet.org platform. This gives hope. If it took us 14 years to plant 18.8 million trees, we now can do 14.2 million trees in 200 days.
In public, the 22,9 million trees financed and planted by Plant-for-the-Planet through donations are often confused with the trees mobilized by the Billion Tree Campaign.
In December 2006, the Nobel Peace Prize winner from Kenya, Prof. Wangari Maathai, together with UNEP, called for the Billion Tree Campaign. On a website, people could report how many trees they had planted. Many companies, government organizations, citizens and also students participated and reported the trees. One of the students was Felix Finkbeiner.
There was no money involved, it was about mobilization. When Prof Wangari Maathai died in September 2011, UNEP transferred the Billion Tree Campaign in December 2011 to the Plant-for-the-Planet Foundation initiated by Felix Finkbeiner and established by his parents. At that time, the Billion Tree Campaign had already mobilized 12.5 billion trees.
However, the technology was at the level of 2006 and the security controls were relatively error-prone. Thus, despite the verification process and the submission of evidence of entries of 10,000 trees or more, jokers were able to bypass these processes and make fun entries.
Therefore, in 2015, Plant-for-the-Planet decided to stop actively promoting the Billion Tree Campaign and instead work on a new concept for a Trillion Tree Campaign, the current plant-for-the-planet.org platform. On this, trees are only counted with the time of the donor’s money transfer.
Transparency report page 15 and 16: https://bit.ly/3zmEbQF
At the beginning of our reforestation, we had determined the survival rate of the newly planted trees after 12 months on randomly identified plots and were very pleased with the high survival rate. Three years later, as a result of the 2020 hurricane season, we experienced nine months of flooding, some of which was several meters high, extending into March 2021. The vast majority of these trees, already several feet tall, will likely have died. Apart from the fact that we probably should have planted other varieties that are better resistant to water, this example shows that a survival rate has little meaning.
Global warming will increase droughts, drought, floods, storms, fires, and also infestations of insects, parasites, and fungi.
Our goal is to take carbon dioxide out of the air, and the best way to do that is with a stable forest ecosystem that keeps expanding on its own, so it keeps growing and taking more and more CO2 out of the air. With the donated trees – and we are, after all, planting up to 30 different species – we are laying the foundations for this ecosystem, which will be less vulnerable to global warming because of its biodiversity. The forests we plant should be as resilient as possible to the climate changes caused by the climate crisis because of their species diversity and their intact forest ecosystem. What is crucial is the intactness of the ecosystem and not so much the survival of the individual tree.
In addition to earmarked donations for trees, everyone can support the further work of Plant-for-the-Planet with non-earmarked donations. This makes our further program work possible: i.e. the education of children and young people, mobilization and public relations work or the further development of the Plant-for-the-Planet App. Only 5% of the Plant-for-the-Planet Foundation’s expenses are for administrative costs. All our expenses are publicly documented on our website.
In Mexico, we are not only active with our own employees on our own land on the Yucatán Peninsula, but we are also supporting the restoration of land belonging to smallholders. One of these projects is located in the state of México near Toluca in Volcano Valley. After its great success, we will transfer this concept to smallholders in other regions of Mexico, because this way the local population benefits directly from forest and climate protection.
In fact, two of our areas, Las Américas 3 and 4, are located in two different biosphere reserves. One is under the supervision of the Mexican federal government and one is under the supervision of the state government of Campeche.
Unfortunately, biosphere reserves do not guarantee the continuity of a protected forest. It is often the case that illegal logging can take place comparatively undisturbed in a biosphere reserve. Accordingly, some forest areas are degraded here as well. A large part of Constitución itself is also located in the Balam-Ku Biosphere Reserve and new building permits are constantly being issued here.
Our ecologists are currently analyzing the sites Las Américas 3 and 4 and as soon as we have developed a restoration plan, we will contact the authorities. For more information, please see the transparency report page 26 https://bit.ly/3zmEbQF
We as humanity must reduce our CO2 emissions to zero, retire as many CO2 allowances as possible, and at the same time sequester CO2 from the atmosphere via ecological restoration.
We should not consider voluntary offsetting as free-buying, selling indulgences or greenwashing, because decommissioned CO2 certificates promote new and clean technologies worldwide.
Plant-for-the-Planet has so far set aside Gold Standard CO2 certificates that promote the development of renewable energies, namely wind and solar power. Plant-for-the-Planet does not generate CO2 certificates for trees or forests, but we consider the worldwide ecological restoration as an additional time-saving effect with many additional benefits for our fellow human beings in the countries of the Global South.
On the plant-for-the-planet.org platform, the price of the renaturation and reforestation projects on offer varies per tree from € 0.10 to € 20 per tree and the donation goes 1:1 to the planting projects selected by the donors.
If the donor selects a Plant-for-the-Planet renaturation project in Mexico, the price is one euro per tree. This so-called “earmarked donation” flows 100 percent from the Plant-for-the-Planet Foundation Germany to the non-profit organization Plant-for-the-Planet A.C. in Mexico. With this euro, the association covers all costs: i.e. the collection of the seeds, the sowing and care of the trees in the nursery, the transport of the seedlings to the planting areas, the planting and above all the care of the young trees, in particular, the removal of the grass that competes with the young trees for light, water and nutrients. The ecologists who ensure the quality of the work are also paid by the Euro, the use of the TreeMapper.App, i.e. the monitoring and reporting. Also, depending on the project, small reserves can be created. With such a reserve, for example, the consequences of the flood disaster in 2020 can be repaired by the end of 2022. (cf. our transparency report: https://bit.ly/3zmEbQF)
From 2015 to 2018, the intention was to use the wood later to be able to finance the work of the young people of Plant-for-the-Planet. In 2019, the board changed this strategy to focus on restoring natural forests.
Our goal is to create ecosystems that have the maximum possible biodiversity because they will be better able to withstand the effects of the climate crisis.
In principle, however, wood is not to be condemned as a building material because its CO2 balance is incomparably better than that of steel and concrete. Steel and concrete are responsible for 11% of the world’s CO2 emissions. In addition, the carbon stored in furniture or wooden houses remains bound for decades. When a tree rots, on the other hand, about half of the carbon dioxide it has stored in the course of its life is released again, the other half is stored in humus.
This depends on many factors. Therefore, one can only calculate with average values here. For our planting area, we refer to a study on trees in Latin America. According to this study (Poorter et al. Nature, 2016), a tree there binds about 200 kg of CO2 during the first 20 years, i.e. about ten kilograms per year. This figure refers to the average uptake of trees in Latin America. Of course, this study does not address each individual tree, but calculates by hectare.
And, also important to know: Of course, the absorption of CO2 increases with the age of the trees: a 35 meter high Manilkara zapota (approx. 80 cm trunk diameter at 1.30 height), for example, stores 215 kilograms of CO2 per year, i.e. 21 times more. And this is exactly where the great potential of old trees lies. That’s why Plant-for-the-Planet is also stepping up its efforts to protect existing forests. Considering that half of the CO2 of a forest is only bound in 5% of the trees, forest protection is a very meaningful approach.
Cf. also: https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-02781-140131
There are national Plant-for-the-Planet entities in Brazil, Italy, Mexico, Switzerland, Spain, the Czech Republic and the USA. The national organizations have volunteer presidents who work for Plant-for-the-Planet without pay. In addition to our pilot project on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, we also have planting projects in Toluca (State of Mexico; with a partner organization), Spain (Ejulve, Sadiz, Doñana, Granada) and Ghana (Savannah Ecological Zone). In Ethiopia, we are implementing a joint project with Plant-for-Ethiopia. For more details, see the transparency report on page 21 https://bit.ly/3zmEbQF
The acquisition of land from regular tree donations is excluded. Anyone who wants land to be acquired from their donations must send Plant-for-the-Planet a so-called earmarked donation for land. Fortunately, we were able to acquire our 91-hectare research area in Constitución in 2019 due to such a donation. Here, our ecologists are conducting pioneering research under the scientific supervision of Imperial College, London and ETH, Zurich. In 2021, we were also able to acquire more than 1,000 hectares of additional land through such generous donations.
Both are two non-profit civic organizations. The foundation was established on November 11, 2011, and the association on April 18, 2013. Because the German foundation also transferred funds to the Mexican association for land acquisition, easements in favor of the German foundation have been entered in the land registers of the properties under civil law. These easements state that the Mexican association may not cut down any tree or sell any square meter of land without the consent of the German foundation.
Against the background of the dynamic development and progressive growth of the Plant-for-the-Planet movement, there is a need to optimize both sets of statutes, particularly with regard to individual provisions of the foundation statutes and the association statutes, as well as the composition of the committees. The two law firms Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and White & Case have drawn up proposals that will be implemented with the national authorities by the end of 2021.
Does Plant-for-the-Planet also want to cut down trees in the long term in order to sell the wood?
From 2015 to 2018, the intention was to use the wood later to be able to finance the work of the young people of Plant-for-the-Planet. In 2019, the board changed this strategy to focus on restoring natural forests.
Our goal is to create ecosystems that have the maximum possible biodiversity because they will be better able to withstand the effects of the climate crisis.
In principle, however, wood is not to be condemned as a building material because its CO2 balance is incomparably better than that of steel and concrete. Steel and concrete are responsible for 11% of the world’s CO2 emissions. In addition, the carbon stored in furniture or wooden houses remains bound for decades. When a tree rots, on the other hand, about half of the carbon dioxide it has stored in the course of its life is released again, the other half is stored in humus.
Yes, of course: Our work is only possible because many donors support us with their money. Thanks to these donations, we can affirm young people, fund research, mobilize people, develop IT platforms and apps, and of course plant trees. Transparency is a matter of course for us and that is why we are also a signatory of Transparency International Deutschland e.V.
In our annual financial statements and summarized in the Transparency Report 2020, it is possible to see exactly how many donations we have received in recent years and what we have spent them on: https://a.plant-for-the-planet.org/annual-reports/
And it is not only our financial situation, i.e. the annual financial statements, that we have had checked and certified by independent auditors, but even our ‘tree accounting’. The non-profit German foundation – established in November 2011– has been audited with unqualified audit opinions since 2013 and the non-profit Mexican association – established in 2013 –– has been audited with unqualified audit opinions since 2015.
As a matter of principle, monitoring and reporting measures have the highest priority for Plant-for-the-Planet. For this reason, since January 1, 2016, we have been recording both the seedlings grown and delivered from the nursery to the restoration areas and the trees planted during the planting period in daily logs, each of which is double-certified by the signature of two senior employees. All daily logs are linked and viewable on our homepage: https://a.plant-for-the-planet.org/de/yucatan-reports/
At the end of each planting season, we have been submitting the number of newly planted trees since 2015 to CONAFOR, the state forestry commission, which also made field visits in the early years of planting and issued certificates of the amount of annual planting upon request. Until 2018, there were about three inspections of our work by CONAFOR forest engineers each year, after which the visits were greatly reduced or even suspended due to cost-cutting measures on the part of CONAFOR.
We have engaged the auditing firm PKF, Mexico to audit the ‘tree accounting’ and all financial statements of the non-profit Plant-for-the-Planet A.C., Mexico. On August 13, 2021, PKF confirmed that a total of 6,207,614 trees have been planted and cared for by our own staff since 2015 and issued an unqualified opinion for all six years 2015-2020.
Since July 2021, our employees have also been using the Treemapper.app to record the geodata of the planted trees and the tree species planted in each case, together with the time of planting. This app was invented by the young team of Plant-for-the-Planet and developed together with developers in India, Germany and America. This app is also open-source, free of charge and is intended to contribute to increasing transparency in ecosystem restoration worldwide.