Transparency is key. Here is the impact we have made together with their customers. Their tree planting ledger keeps a running count of all trees that have been paid for and their corresponding certificates.

This is a fair concern and here is what they are doing to alleviate it:

• Their partners work carefully with all levels of government to secure written agreements designating the restoration sites as protected in perpetuity.

• They hire people from local communities to plant trees. In this way, we alleviate extreme poverty within the impacted community. Fair and consistent employment provides an economic incentive to ensure the well-being of the restoration project. Additionally, those who plant the trees have a sense of “ownership” over the restored forests, so they protect them with great care.

• A percentage of the trees planted are agroforestry species (fruit, fodder species designed to provide food security and benefit legitimate human needs). Over time these trees become a source of sustainable income.

• They do everything possible to supply the local communities with alternative fuel sources (e.g., fuel-efficient dry wood stoves and solar parabolic stoves), reducing and or eliminating the dependence on charcoal.

• They hire forest guards as part of the labour force to protect the forests. Forest guards are part of the overall budget.

• Most significantly, they have seen the local communities fall in love with their forest. They benefit from the restored forest through an increase in fisheries, improved farming, cleaner water, and the formation of micro-enterprises. As the employees work to restore their land, their lives are transformed as well.

• Eden has also created a Forest Guard Endowment Fund, whereby one cent of the price of each tree is put into a fund for the long-term guarding and protection of our sites.

Yes, they provide tree planting certificates on a monthly basis to us. They also showcase the certificates we have received from Eden here on our tree planting ledger.