Yucatán Restoration

Protecting and regrowing the forests of the Yucatán Peninsula

Our 124-people strong restoration team on the Yucatán Peninsula works intensively during the rainy season from July to December. Our goal for 2022 is to plant 3 million trees. Thanks to the incredibly dedicated and efficient work of everyone involved, we are able to plant one tree for every euro donated.

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until the 2022 Planting Seasons

1,665,383

Trees

Trees Planted in the 2021 Planting Season

7.9

Million

Trees Planted 2015–2021

Yucatán Reforestation

Our 124-people strong restoration team on the Yucatan Peninsula is working hard to plant 2–3 million trees in the upcoming rainy season from July to December 2021. Thanks to the incredibly dedicated and efficient work of our team, we are able to plant one tree for every euro donated.

Donate Trees

Days until the 2022 Planting Seasons

1,665,383

Trees

Trees Planted in the 2021 Planting Season

6.3

Million

Trees Planted between 2015–2020

Replanting Pastures and Restoring Forests

We are working to restore the forest landscapes in and around the San Felipe Bacalar Natural Protected Area, as well as the Balam-Kú and Calakmul Biosphere Reserves. Our work takes place within 20,000 hectares, an area larger than the country of Liechtenstein.

Our sites have suffered different levels of degradation: Some areas are recently abandoned cattle pastures with only a few scattered trees left (like parts of Las Americas 5 & 7).

Other areas were never fully deforested, but either economically valuable trees have been logged or significant proportions of the forest were destroyed by fires (like San Felipe Bacalar A and B), leaving behind relatively species-poor vegetation. In other areas, the forest is still full of many species and we are either conserving it or letting it grow back on its own (like Las Americas 3 & 4).

According to Global Forest Watch estimations, deforestation in the three states of the Yucatán peninsula (Campeche, Quintana Roo, Yucatán) accounted for 42.3% of all forests lost between 2001 and 2020 across Mexico.

Explore the sites

22,500 Hectares on Yucatán and hundreds of small farmers in Mexico

Trees Planted in 2021 Planting Season (July–December)

We plan to plant 2.5 million trees in the 2021 planting season. When we plant or have to stop is dictated by the rain. Our teams usually work 10.5 days straight before an extended weekend. Planting begins slowly in early July and peaks in September/October.

Data from Past Years

TreeMapper

A powerful and easy-to-use tool for standardized on-site data collection on forest restoration

Get it onGoogle Play

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With the Plant-for-the-Planet.org platform, people worldwide can plant trees from the comfort of their sofa. 2021 brings the next revolution that reforestation initiatives around the world have been desperately waiting for: the TreeMapper app - a powerful monitoring and reporting app. It provides donors and partners with maximum transparency on ecosystem restoration. And it provides the planting organizations themselves with the highest level of quality control. To put it bluntly: With the Plant-for-the-Planet.org platform, people all over the world can plant trees from their sofa and, with the TreeMapperApp, watch these trees grow from the same sofa, even though they were planted thousands of kilometers away.

Explore the Daily Data

Planting over 20 Native Species

After mainly planting eight species in phase one of the project, we will plant over 20 species this year, to get closer to restoring the original level of tree biodiversity that existed in these forests. This includes many early successional species for our restoration in formerly pasture sites and dense wood species in our enrichment planting work. The blue species are especially flood-tolerant, a very important attribute for some of the sites we are restoring this year.

Ramón (Brosimum alicastrum)
Chakaj (Bursera simaruba)
Chacté Viga (Caesalpinia mollis)
Ceiba (Ceiba pentandra)

Luuch/Jicara (Crescentia cujete)
Pich/Guanacaste (Enterolobium cyclocarpum)
Madre de cacao (Gliricidia sepium)
Pixoy (Guazuma ulmifolia)
Palo de tinte (Haematoxylum campechianum)

Guayacan amarillo (Handroanthus chrysanthus)
Waxim (Leucaena leucocephala)

Tzalam (Lysiloma latisiliquum)

Jabín (Piscidia piscipula)
Passak (Simarouba glauca)
Caoba (Swietenia macrophylla)
Maculis (Tabebuia rosea)
Cedro (Cedrela odorata)

We are also growing 13 additional species from our seed-collection program. However, we are not certain if we are able to germinate and grow all of them in sufficient numbers to plant them at scale this year.

Kaatsim (Acacia gaumeri)
Anonillo (Annona reticulata)
Mareña (Caesalpinia versicaria)
Taa k'in che' (Caesalpinia yucatanensis)
Pimienta ché (Colubrina arborescens)
Chukum (Havardia albicans)
Corcho (Heliocarpus mexicanus)

K'anasín (Lonchocarpus rugosus)
K'an kaat (Luehea speciosa)
Káatsim blanco (Mimosa bahamensis)
Granadillo (Platymiscium yucatanum)
K'an lool (Senna racemosa)
Cabo de hacha (Trichilia hirta)

Restoration in Yucatan 2021: 7 Steps from Devastation to Biodiversity

Planting over 20 Native Species

After mainly planting eight species in phase one of the project we will plant over 20 species this year, to get closer to restoring the original level of tree biodiversity that existed in these forests. This includes many early successional species for our restoration in formerly pasture sites and dense wood species in our enrichment planting work. The blue species are especially flood tolerant, a very important attribute for some of the sites we are restoring this year.

Ramón (Brosimum alicastrum)
Chakaj (Bursera simaruba)
Chacté Viga (Caesalpinia mollis)
Ceiba (Ceiba pentandra)

Luuch/Jicara (Crescentia cujete)
Pich/Guanacaste (Enterolobium cyclocarpum)
Madre de cacao (Gliricidia sepium)
Pixoy (Guazuma ulmifolia)
Palo de tinte (Haematoxylum campechianum)

Guayacan amarillo (Handroanthus chrysanthus)
Waxim (Leucaena leucocephala)

Tzalam (Lysiloma latisiliquum)

Jabín (Piscidia piscipula)
Passak (Simarouba glauca)
Caoba (Swietenia macrophylla)
Maculis (Tabebuia rosea)
Cedro (Cedrela odorata)

Kaatsim (Acacia gaumeri)
Anonillo (Annona reticulata)
Mareña (Caesalpinia versicaria)
Taa k'in che' (Caesalpinia yucatanensis)
Pimienta ché (Colubrina arborescens)
Chukum (Havardia albicans)
Corcho (Heliocarpus mexicanus)
K'anasín (Lonchocarpus rugosus)
K'an kaat (Luehea speciosa)
Káatsim blanco (Mimosa bahamensis)
Granadillo (Platymiscium yucatanum)
K'an lool (Senna racemosa)
Cabo de hacha (Trichilia hirta)

Semi-evergreen Tropical Forest

We aim to restore a seasonal semi-evergreen tropical forest. Unlike the wetter forests we imagine when we think of the tropics, these forests have 4–6 month long dry seasons where only little rain falls. Where we work, 25–50% of the trees drop their leaves during that time because they are water stressed.

In the state of Campeche, where our work takes place, 8.1% of the original forest has been lost since 2002. Restoring this ecosystem is not just important for plants, but also the animals. In Campeche, jaguars and tapirs are in danger of extinction because of deforestation, habitat fragmentation and incidental deaths by human encounters.

In our sites, we often wake up to the sound of howler monkeys near the camp and see box turtles while planting. So far, only Nicolas, Juan and Jose have seen Jaguars.

In a semi-evergreen forest, some trees lose their leaves in the dry season (Picture of forest near our office in the Yucatán)

Our 124 Team Members

Seasonally working staff is to be added to our permanently employed colleagues.

85 Reforesters

Plant trees in the wet season and help trees grow by cleaning fast-growing grasses with machetes in the dry season (about 1/3 work seasonally)

4 Field Crew Leaders

Manage teams of 20 reforesters in the field.

13 Nursery technicians

Collect seeds, grow seedlings, and prepare them for planting (not directly employed by Plant-for-the-Planet).

6 Ecologists and forest engineers

Select restoration sites, plan outplanting, maintenance and organise experiments.

4 Data collectors

Measure trees, look for signs of disease and collect leaf, root and soil samples

6 Cooks

Work in our two kitchens and provide three meals a day to all team members

4 Construction workers

Build and maintain team housing

2 Mechanics

Maintains our seedling-trucks, buses, tractors and backhoes

Our 124 Team Members

Seasonally working staff is to be added to our permanently employed colleagues

85 Reforesters

Plant trees in the wet season and help trees grow by cleaning fast-growing grasses with machetes in the fry season (about 1/3 work seasonally)

4 Field Crew Leaders

Manage teams of 20 reforesters in the field.

13 Nursery technicians

Collect seeds, grow seedlings, and prepare them for planting (not directly employed by Plant-for-the-Planet).

6 Ecologists and forest engineers

Select reforestation sites, plan outplanting, maintenance and organise experiments.

4 Data collectors

Measure trees, look for signs of disease and collect leaf, root and soil samples

6 Cooks

Work in our two kitchens and provide three meals a day to all team members

4 Construction workers

Build and maintain team housing

2 Mechanics

Maintains our seedling-trucks, buses, tractors and backhoes

Project Leader

Raul Negrete

President of Plant-for-the-Planet A.C. (Mexico)

Raul, a civil engineer, works as an independent property appraiser. He grew up in Chetumal – about two hours away from our restoration sites – and has supported Plant-for-the-Planet since cofounding Plant-for-the-Planet Mexico in 2013. Since then, he has built and led our Mexico team – from the first academies we organised here in 2013, via the first tree planted in the Yucatan Restoration program in 2015 to the begin of our forest conservation work in 2022.

Advisory Board

Minister Dr. Sandra Laffon Leal

Minister of the Environment

Campeche

Dr. Ruben Dario Gongora

Director

INIFAP Quintana Roo

Dr. Carlos Tucuch

Director

CONAFOR Campeche

Dr. Ana Silva

Director of Sustainable Forestry Development

Environment Ministry of Campeche

Arturo Balam Koyoc

Director

Balam-Kú and Balam-Kin Ecosystem Reserves

Jocelyn Duran

Director of Biodiversity Conservation and Management

Environment Ministry of Campeche

Miguel Arcos

Major of Constitución

Andres Cruz Zamudio

Rector

Universidad Tecnológica de Calakmul

Restoration Supervision Expert Board

Dr. Pilar Angelica Gómez-Ruiz

Professor, Universidad Autónoma del Carmen

Mexico

Dr. Rakan A. Zahawi

Professor, University of Hawaii
Director, Charles Darwin Foundation in the Galapagos

USA/Ecuador

Dr. Joachim Hamberger

Professor, Technical University Munich

Germany

Joachim Elsässer

BDI Coordinator for Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile

Germany/Mexico

Restoration Ecology Research

Since January 2020, we have been operating a 90-hectare research site (Las Americas 5). Here, we are conducting large-scale restoration field trials with scientists from ETH Zürich and Imperial College London. Restoration outcomes are incredibly complicated and variable. Testing theories at this scale allows us to test hypotheses that will help to improve the design and implementation of forest landscape restoration projects. We hope the research will allow us – and other practitioners – to get better at restoring tropical forests.

Photos

Videos

We set up the first experiment with 16,000 trees in 2020 to understand what percentage of all trees planted should be nitrogen-fixing species to optimise overall survival and growth rates.

Nitrogen-fixing tree species can help to fertilize the soil and help nearby tree species, without the ability to fix nitrogen, to grow.

We are also testing a hypothesis that a simple addition of forest soil to a tree’s planting hole can increase survival rates. We expect to be introducing symbiotic microbes through the soil addition and thus the soil microorganism diversity in degraded soil towards communities that ‘help’ the trees grow.

In a second experiment, to be set up in September 2021, we aim to determine how rates of forest recovery are influenced by the characteristics of planted tree species. We will plant tree species mixes that span a gradient of diversity (both species richness and functional diversity) and evaluate how characteristics of planted tree species can catalyze ecosystem recovery.

Project Sites

Yucatan Restoration and Conversation Sites

Balam-Kú/Calakmul Biosphere Reserve Region

Las Americas 7
The western half of the site is mostly intact forest, with smaller patches of degradation. The eastern half is entirely deforested. We are planting in the deforested and degraded sites in 2021 and 2022.
Las Americas 5
Our research site (90 ha) is located within the Balam-Kú reserve. It is just one km from our office and is used for our large field trials.
Las Americas 3 & 4
Our two largest project sites are within the Calakmul and Balam-Kú reserves. They are the least degraded of all our project sites. We are currently preparing a thorough field analysis of the conditions of these forests. All areas not severely degraded are conserved and allowed to naturally regenerate. If sufficient degradation is discovered to merit an intensive restoration intervention, we will apply for a permit and potentially begin work in 2023.
Las Americas 1, 2 & 6
These sites experienced varying states of degradation. In the years 2015–2020, we reforested and implemented enrichment planting.

Explore the sites

San Felipe Bacalar Natural Protected Area

San Felipe Bacalar A
339 hectares of forest burned in 2019. However, many trees survived the blaze. We are conducting enrichment planting in 2021 to restore the lost species.
San Felipe Bacalar B
Another devastating fire in 2020 affected this section (220 ha) of the Natural Protected Area. We will be conducting enrichment planting here in 2022.
San Felipe Bacalar C, D & E
We will be converting what used to be an 87 ha coconut plantation back into a natural forest.

Explore the sites

INIFAP’s Restoration Report 2021

The Las Americas sites are owned by Plant-for-the-Planet. The San Felipe Bacalar sites are owned by our partners, INIFAP. INIFAP is a federal agriculture and forestry research institution. We partnered to restore the San Felipe Bacalar Natural Protected Area. As part of this partnership, Plant-for-the-Planet is conducting the restoration and maintenance work of the trees for the first three years after planting, in close collaboration with INIFAP. INIFAP is then responsible for the long-term protection of the forests.

We aim to plant 100 million trees in Mexico by 2030. That’s a very ambitious target. Not all of these trees are to be planted on the Yucatan Peninsula, but also in other efforts around the country. Of course, the sites of Plant-for-the-Planet and its partners are not big enough for all these trees. We are continuously looking for additional sites to continue our work.

In addition to our work on the Yucatán Peninsula, we also work with partners to restore the forest in central Mexico (see below). Depending on where they are needed most, tree-donations to Plant-for-the-Planet are allocated to one of these two projects.

We are incredibly grateful for every donor and supporter allowing us to restore these ecosystems. Due to the delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and in order to focus on maximising the diversity of species planted and to do our best to restore these ecosystems as well as possible, we are not scaling up our operations as quickly as initially planned. Thus, we expect that trees donated today might not be planted until late 2022 or even the 2023 planting season.

Download Transparency Report

Daily Reports & Project Records

To give you a feel for our work we’ve digitised the daily work reports of our planting team and have compiled the delivery notes that accompany the seedlings from the nursery to our planting areas, our staff numbers, some of whom have been with us since the first tree, our buildings and machinery and an overview of further costs.

Daily Reports & Project Records

FAQ

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.

Volcano Valley Reforestation
Toluca, Mexico

The forests in Mexico, the most populous state in the country, are under increasing threat due to the destruction of large areas of the forest through deforestation, forest fires and overgrazing. Poor management of natural resources is worsening the situation. Often the soil quality has already deteriorated to such an extent that natural regeneration of the forests is no longer realistic. Sustainable restoration is the last option here to prevent further erosion by renewing protective vegetation and increasing soil fertility.

As a result, the remaining forests and their resources can be saved for the future. With this goal in mind, Plant-for-the-Planet Mexico A.C. and PROBOSQUE, an organization assigned to the Mexican Ministry of the Environment, agreed to cooperate in the state of México (capital Toluca). By 2019, 2.8 million trees had been planted. The particular feature of this project is that the restoration covers a total of 197 sub-areas of varying sizes, all of which are managed in small, mostly rural structures. Of these, 92 are jointly managed ejidos (a total of 1,913,775 trees), the remaining areas are divided between small farmers (619,925 trees) and cooperatives (290,300 trees).

All restored sites have been declared protected areas. When selecting the newly planted trees, care was taken to ensure that a mixture of indigenous tree species suitable for this part of the country was selected. These include various species of pine, agaves, a mimosa species and the Mexican cypress. They integrate optimally into the still existing forests and by this contribute to the preservation of the local biodiversity of secondary plants and animals.

By the end of 2020, we will have planted another 1,500,010 million trees together with the small farmers organized in cooperatives, thus spreading the responsibility of tree care over many shoulders.

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