Reforestation projects come in many forms, from the creation of urban green spaces to large-scale monoculture plantations. At the heart of every Mossy Earth reforestation project is a simple but powerful goal - to restore native, wild forests. That means we only support projects that plant native trees where they would grow naturally. We typically plant on land owned by our partners under various states of protection.  Before deciding whether to support a project, we carry out a systematic selection process and check that the project meets the following criteria.

Does the project help restore ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation and combat climate change?

We support projects that aim to restore ecosystem services, conserve biodiversity and combat and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Our reforestation projects are not just about increasing tree cover. We look for projects that take into account species diversity and functionality, how trees can provide ecosystem services like soil stabilization and water purification, and their role in providing habitat for local flora and fauna. We also look for projects that consider how the project can help combat and mitigate climate change. Not all reforestation projects are equal and improper design can actually contribute to increased carbon emissions. Our reforestation projects are an important part of our wider rewilding efforts, which is why we select reforestation projects that will, above all, help to rewild degraded landscapes. 

Is the ecological problem and proposed solution supported by sound scientific evidence and ecological theory?

Each project must demonstrate a thorough understanding of the ecological problem and outline how the project activities will address these issues. The cost of inaction should be clear and in line with our objective to restore wild forests. In order to ensure that our members’ support has the greatest possible impact, we only support projects that are grounded in science. That means that project objectives and activities are supported by strong scientific evidence and monitoring. 

Does the project fit with the wider context of landscape restoration for the region/area? 

Rewilding degraded landscapes is at the heart of our reforestation projects. Our reforestation projects therefore take a landscape-scale approach to restoration. Our trees and planting areas are not treated in isolation, but rather as a whole. This means that when making decisions on what species to plant, where and how to plant them, we take into consideration how these activities will shape the wider landscape. 

Does the approach display an understanding of the drivers of forest loss and have they been addressed? 

In order to effectively restore forest landscapes, it is essential that the drivers of deforestation and degradation have been addressed. Whether it was land clearing for agriculture, harvesting for timber or high densities of herbivores, projects should address the threats that drove the original forest to decline. The project should also identify and  address any new threats that could prevent future declines in forest cover and habitat quality of the newly restored forests. 

Once a project has been selected, a reforestation management plan is drawn up to outline the particular objectives and activities of the project. We identify what tree species will be planted, where, when and the appropriate planting methodology for the site. The species are selected for diversity, functionality and site specific requirements. Across our projects the specific details of the project vary in line with the ecological context. Things like tree diversity and density vary between the different forest types, from the relatively diverse woodlands at our Slovakian and Scottish projects to the more homogenous conifer forests of the high-altitude Southern Carpathians or the birchwoods of Iceland. We plant our trees in large batches during the best planting season, which may vary depending on the site conditions, to maximise efficiency and survival rates. While some of our projects source their trees from independent nurseries, others grow the trees in their own nurseries. 

Regardless of these differences, one thing our projects all have in common is that decisions are made to maximise the probability that our newly restored forests will survive in the long-term. We typically plant trees at a higher density than would exist in a mature woodland, so we expect some of the trees not to make it. Competition between saplings and mortality of young trees is a natural part of forest regeneration. In extreme cases, it's possible that an unprecedented number of trees might die, for example because of a fire, flood or disease outbreak, but this is unlikely, and has not yet happened to us. Another common thread across our projects is a reliance on local employment rather than volunteers for the land preparation and planting activities. It's important to us that local communities benefit from a rewilded landscape, which is why we make sure our projects provide sustainable livelihood opportunities for the local community. 

All our planting areas are mapped and stored in a GIS system. Tree numbers and species lists are recorded for each planting area alongside a drone flyover, 360 aerial images and a biologist walkthrough video, which is made available to members. This footage will serve as “before” photos and videos to compare against future footage, enabling us to visually assess changes. Since rewilding is a core objective of our reforestation projects, we also monitor the wildlife that occurs in the project area. Given the limited capacity for young forests to support wildlife, camera traps are installed in locations within the project area that offer better quality habitat and are close to where we are planting. This allows us to record the species that will benefit from increased forest cover, habitat quality and connectivity. 

How can I be sure you are planting my trees?

Transparency is paramount to us and we go to great lengths to ensure that you are able to evaluate our work. We provide maps of the planting area, drone flyovers and aerial 360 images of every planting area and monthly updates. As a member, you can also contact us to chat with the team to answer any questions you might have. 

Once the trees have left the safety and comfort of the nursery and are planted out in the field, they are very susceptible to harsh weather conditions, disease, competition and more and unfortunately some of them will die. This is a natural part of forest regeneration, which is why we plant our trees more densely than they would naturally occur in a mature woodland. Although some trees will die, each tree makes an important contribution to the restoration of the woodland site, encouraging competition between the trees. Even after death, the trees can play an important role in the woodland, by providing habitat and food for a variety of species. 

Will I be able to know which tree I had planted?

We know that every single tree makes a real difference to environmental preservation but that it is the forest, not the individual tree, that ultimately matters. As such, we photograph and map out planting area, keep track of them internally, and provide detailed information to our members and customers. We do not mark or label our trees in any way.

How accurate are the maps and can I really find my tree?

Mapping will always have some degree of error, but our planting sites are mapped as accurately as possible to adequately represent our restoration efforts and enable us to revisit sites in the future for monitoring purposes. 

We plant your trees during narrow planting windows in the right seasons so they grow in the best possible conditions to not only survive, but also thrive. These windows are specific to each project and the tree species we use. As an example we plant in the Southern Carpathians in spring and autumn to avoid winter snow and high summer temperatures.

We take a systematic approach to restore forests from selecting our partners all the way through to implementation and monitoring.  All our projects restore native, wild forests and are grounded in science. 

Reforestation Methodology

We have made it part of our mission to deliver transparency through technology. This means that we do our best to develop the tools our members need to evaluate the impact of our rewilding and reforestation efforts for themselves. Being open and transparent in this way helps us develop trust and to get members engaged with our projects at a deeper level. Here we explain the different measures we take for this to work. 

For each and every one of our planting areas, we map the area and record the number of trees planted and the species mix. We also provide drone flyover footage, aerial 360 images, and a biologist walkthrough video of the planting areas soon after planting, which is available for members and customers to view through their accounts. 

Our aim is for users to be able to see where trees have been planted and how that fits in with the wider landscape restoration efforts. There is also the possibility for any member or customer to visit the planting area themselves and verify in person that the trees have been planted. Some of them are quite a way out there in the wilderness but it makes for a fun hike!

For logistical and financial reasons, we plant our trees in batches and always finish assigning each batch of trees before moving on to the next batch to ensure additionality. For practical reasons, we are only able to provide the video footage and imagery of one planting area - the area where the majority of trees are being assigned - in a single month.

All of our planting areas are mapped and, for each tree planted, the location of the planting area where it is located is made available in the membership accounts, alongside tree numbers and species lists. They are also uploaded to the Restor platform so that anyone can see the entire suite of planting areas for each project. 

To compliment the detailed imagery we gather at each planting area immediately after planting, we aim to return after an appropriate period of time, depending on the growth rates at the project, to repeat the process and gather "before" and "after" photos. In doing so, members will be able to see how the forest has grown and changed over time.

Every reforestation and rewilding project is an ongoing story. An important part of being transparent is keeping our members up to date with what is happening in the field. Updates can include recent camera trap footage of the local wildlife, YouTube videos covering the context and progress of projects or a simple description of progress. We strive to give you a clear picture of what is happening and the team is always available to answer any questions as they come up.

Every quarter, we publish a Membership Report providing you with: 

We report the highlights of each period including our total number of members, the value of your combined contributions and how much of this goes to its intended purpose. You’ll also see the detail behind our calculations of our monthly rewilding and reforestation budgets. For example, how we split funds between these budgets and the types of rewilding projects we allocate your money to.

Alongside this report there is our Membership Vote. Through this, our members are able to vote on whether to approve or disapprove of the results we present as well as decide on several key questions about how we should run Mossy Earth. In each vote we will share insights into our vision for the future and gather your thoughts. Our aim with these two measures is to make the membership more democratic in the long run and to give you a voice on the direction Mossy Earth should take on key issues. 

We will make our Membership Reports and Vote Results available to everyone here:

We also make in-depth videos to share and discuss the results of the membership vote, to explain what’s driven the numbers in our membership reports and to reply to our members' most important questions. If you are curious to know a bit more in-depth how we are thinking about our work and why we make certain decisions, then be sure to check out our latest Q&A video below.

How our reforestation plans are changing - Q4 Transparency Report & Vote Results

The recent growth of our community of members has brought fresh eyes and numerous suggestions on how we can improve our work and its reporting. We have welcomed this and have implemented the Membership Report and Vote as two new transparency measures to act on these suggestions.

There is still plenty of work to be done, however, to get to the level of transparency we hope to have. For now, if you have any questions or would like to book a call with us, simply reach out to us to chat or by email and we will get all your questions answered.

We take trust and transparency very seriously. In addition to our current measures, we have quite a few ambitious features we are working on. 

Trust and Transparency

The aims of rewilding resonate with a lot of people. Our rewilding projects are a way to translate this enthusiasm into concrete action towards restoring degraded ecosystems. We have developed a rewilding project design and selection process that aims to ensure that our members' support has the greatest possible impact. Here, we let you in on this process so that you can understand how we work and feel confident that these projects are worthwhile. 

To be suitable, the project must aim to achieve one or more of these objectives that are central to rewilding. 

Improve habitat integrity and connectivity        	

Restore biodiversity and/or abundance of native species

We also favour rewilding projects that can demonstrate broader socio-economic and environmental benefits, such as:

Provide greater economic value to local communities

Prevent spread of invasive species, floods and soil degradation  

Interventions on an ecosystem can have cascading consequences on many species and processes. And this is exactly the reason small rewilding projects are a powerful tool for restoration. However, this complexity often makes it difficult to predict the impact of an intervention. Therefore, a good rewilding project will back up predictions with scientific evidence and acknowledge remaining uncertainties. 

If the rewilding project aims to implement a novel intervention for which there is limited empirical evidence, the rationale should be based on ecological theory and properly referenced. In this situation, it is crucial to evaluate unwanted impacts and how to deal with them should they occur (see adaptive approach below). Although it may be tempting to focus only on scaling up well studied interventions, we think innovation is necessary if we are to reap the full potential of rewilding. Therefore, we also value well thought out research projects that will provide the evidence we need to make rewilding efforts more effective.  

In all cases we also consider what would happen if we did not support the project to understand if there really is a clear cost of inaction. By assessing additionality in this way, we can determine the extent to which the positive impacts actually result from the support of our members.

Does the project fit with the rewilding goals of Mossy Earth?

Every rewilding project we undertake or support we do so with the big picture in mind. As a team, we set out our rewilding goals and priorities for the year and use this to guide our research and management decisions. Our vision is based on two key principles 1) maximising diversity and 2) maximising impact. We strive for a diverse portfolio that spans countries and themes, so that our members' impact can reach across ecosystems, landscapes and species. But, we don’t want to spread ourselves too thin, so we prioritize particular areas and types of projects. Firstly, we prioritize projects at our rewilding hubs, Scotland and Portugal, where our biologists are based. We also prioritise projects that we think will provide members with the biggest bang for their buck. We prioritise rewilding projects that help combat climate change, have cascading impacts across the ecosystem, and/or save threatened but ignored species from extinction. In general, we only support projects that make sense within the context of our rewilding vision.

Are the actual drivers of ecological degradation addressed?

For projects to be successful in the long term it is important that the problems that led to the original issue are addressed. For example, efforts to reintroduce a top predator in an area where its demise was the result of a declining prey population are bound to fail if prey numbers don’t increase. Similarly, if human-wildlife conflict was the issue that originally drove a species away, measures must be in place to mitigate this problem.

Will Mossy Earth funding be essential for the project to go ahead?

To ensure we are achieving as much as possible with the funds we have, it is not enough to know the ecological outcomes of what we do. To understand if our support was truly needed, we also have to evaluate the likelihood that these outcomes would be achieved even if we did not get involved. Part of this comes down to the issue we are focusing on. Projects that tackle neglected problems such as the plight of uncharismatic organisms or promising but unexplored opportunities will tend to have greater additionality.  

Another important angle is to consider the funding structure and the likelihood of there being alternative sources of funding available to implement the project. When the total project budget is covered by us we can be more confident that our involvement was decisive. However, we also establish co-funding partnerships with other organisations when this allows for more ambitious projects to be implemented than if everyone worked separately. This is often important to get larger projects off the ground, such as species reintroductions or those that require considerable engineering or construction work, for example dam removal or wetland creation. 

We work with our partners to design a management plan for each project, where we outline the project objectives, activities, timelines and expected outputs. This forms the foundation of our management decisions through the course of the project. From this point on, we do our best to take our members on the journey that is the implementation of an exciting rewilding project and create at least one project video for every one of our projects. We keep them up to date with the progress and share any data, photos and videos as they come in on our members feed, accessible through the membership account. To help you get a better perspective of how our rewilding projects are financed, we share a quarterly report. Within the report, we outline the proposed spending allocated to different types of rewilding projects. Members are then given the opportunity to approve the quarterly results and answer key questions on our rewilding projects in a membership vote. Learn more about all our transparency measures in our Trust and Transparency methodology.

We also provide opportunities for members to gain first-hand knowledge of what rewilding and ecological restoration entails and to get a more personal interaction with the amazing people that are doing this work through our Discord community and regular townhall sessions. Through these conversations, we hope to make every member feel that they are part of the team.

A significant amount of our rewilding work relies on the use of technology. Some of the tools we commonly use in our projects are camera traps, wildlife tracking devices and drones. 

Camera traps are a non-invasive tool, placed systematically or randomly in the field to capture images or videos of the local wildlife or target species. These cameras can be used to gather species lists for an area, species richness estimates, behavioural data and even estimates of population size. 

Electronic trackers, in contrast, require individual animals to be trapped and fitted with an appropriate tracker (collars, harnesses, tags etc.) to monitor their movements and behaviour over time. Certain types of data can only be collected using this kind of technology, in which case a more invasive approach may be necessary to provide vital data for the conservation of the target species.    

We are also using drones to create high resolution maps that can provide very useful information about the ecosystems we are working to restore. For example, we have used them to monitor plants in hard to access locations, map potential snail habitat and assess the spatial arrangement of termite mounds and trees across the landscape.  

One of the challenges in nature restoration is that ecosystems are very complex and we often have to integrate different kinds of evidence to come up with interventions that actually work. For a given decision, evidence may come from peer reviewed papers, databases, project reports, practitioner and expert knowledge, local and indigenous knowledge and citizen science to list some of the sources.

In September 2022, we decided to tackle this challenge head on by setting up a partnership with Conservation Evidence, an ambitious project that aims to provide a “free, authoritative information resource designed to support decisions about how to maintain and restore global biodiversity”. We will be working with their team, based at the University of Cambridge, to improve the way we use and create evidence about our projects. Here are some of the reasons we are very excited about this:

Better use of evidence can improve project outcomes.

Using more structured approaches to decision making will make it easier for us to share the rationale behind them and get feedback from our members and project stakeholders.

Improving our approach to cost reporting will help us better track the cost-effectiveness of our work. This can also prove useful for other organisations pursuing similar projects or for seeking ways to reduce costs.

Optimising the way we create and share new evidence through our projects will help us ensure that we are not only having a direct impact on these ecosystems but also creating a knowledge base that will inform future projects.

Finally, by making progress in this direction we hope to inspire other organisations to do the same.

We will keep updating this page as we make progress towards these goals. 

Improving the way we use and share evidence

Rewilding is an approach to conservation that aims to restore ecosystem processes and return degraded landscapes to ecologically dynamic healthy ecosystems. It is based on the premise that nature can take care of itself. We can, however, give it a helping hand and create the right conditions by restoring vital ecosystem processes like predation, grazing, regeneration and decomposition. Rewilding is therefore about reducing human control over the land. It does not mean removing people from the land entirely. In fact, in these wilder landscapes, people and planet can flourish together.

How can rewilding help fight climate change?

Rewilding offers an opportunity to combat and mitigate the current ecological and climate crisis. Functioning ecosystems can provide vital ecosystem services such as oxygen production, water purification and flood prevention as well as providing food, medicine and valuable resources. They can also regulate the climate. For example, planting trees can help sequester CO2 from the atmosphere. Restoring predator-prey dynamics can ease browsing pressure on forests, helping support natural regeneration and carbon sequestration. These are just some of the ways rewilding can help fight climate change.  

Can rewilding help prevent the 6th mass extinction?

By restoring ecosystems, rewilding can contribute to the conservation of vulnerable species at risk of falling victim to the world’s 6th mass extinction. By restoring habitats, reintroducing keystone species, reconnecting isolated populations, reconstructing food chains, and all the other benefits of rewilding, we can help prevent more species from going extinct. 

I want to learn more about rewilding? What should I do?

You can delve into the wonderful world of rewilding through our rewilding blog where we’ve published a variety of different articles on the topic of rewilding. There you can learn more about the theory behind rewilding, the methods involved, and the impacts and benefits rewilding can bring. 

Are your rewilding areas open to the public? 

Yes they are, but please contact us first so that we can help you arrange your visit. 

We chose our rewilding projects through a systematic selection process. Mossy earth members get to choose which interventions to support and  receive interesting project updates. 

Rewilding Methodology

The Process Behind our Rewilding Projects 

Mossy Earth has as its main objective to create independent and sustainable long-term funding mechanisms for impactful rewilding, reforestation and conservation projects. Our core focus is to help restore, protect and enhance a wide range of important and threatened wild ecosystems through a process that is transparent and enjoyable for our members.

The choices we made when setting up Mossy Earth were premeditated and follow a reasoning which I want to explain further in this business methodology. This is an in-depth breakdown of how we think, so be ready for a long read!

We are incorporated as a private limited company in the United Kingdom with a regular for-profit structure. We are not a charity and the Mossy Earth membership is not a donation. 

There are many reasons why we chose to incorporate as a company instead of an NGO or charity. However, before I get into the nitty gritty, I would like to note that this is simply our choice. It’s how we feel we can have the greatest impact, not about how others should manage their projects. There are many fantastic NGOs out there including many of our suppliers and rewilding partners as well as other great initiatives, so please keep that in mind when reading the rest of this methodology, this is about us.

NGOs are different from normal companies and the government in two crucial ways. Firstly, an NGO does not pay taxes and its revenues or investments are tax deductible. Secondly, NGOs are privately managed, and their spending is not subject to management by democratically elected individuals. This mechanism is something that Matt, who co-founded Mossy Earth, and myself find flawed and decided to avoid for our project.

It is my understanding that the concept of an NGO became widespread as a solution to appease the anger at the significant inequality between the factory workers and the first industrial capitalists of the 19th century who accumulated extreme levels of wealth. By creating an entity seen as a benevolent redistributor of welfare, the wealthy individuals that first came up with this concept were perceived as great benefactors to society, whilst still controlling exactly how their money was spent. This is something that persists to this day. “Winner’s take all” by Anand Giridharadas covers this issue as well as other problems with NGOs and social enterprises. 

It goes without saying that, when used correctly, the NGO model can achieve amazing results, it just did not feel like the right structure for us.

Someone who accumulates wealth is usually taxed significantly more than the average citizen. Their tax payments are then added to government budgets and spent by the elected individuals in government at that time. This process ensures, or at least tries to ensure, that the money accumulated through everyone’s contribution is spent democratically. By this we mean that the elected individuals should follow the programs on which they were elected and thus the resulting policies should be the closest to what most of the population wants. In practice, this management is far from perfect and not always democratic, but it's something we can work on together, democratically.

An NGO creates a mechanism for wealthy individuals to avoid taxation and retain control over their money in some form. By receiving tax deductions for their donations these individuals can pay less taxes into the pool of money that is managed democratically and instead put their wealth into organisations and causes where they have a higher degree of control. This point is crucial, I think individuals should be able to accumulate fortunes and spend them how they want but this should never be to the detriment of the democratic wealth redistribution mechanisms (taxes).

This context encouraged us to think of how we would like to be different. We decided early on we did not want to be a mechanism for wealthy corporations or individuals to avoid taxes. Instead, we decided to focus on the general population for our funding and that we wanted to pay taxes on our income and our surplus. 

In a nutshell, these are the reasons why we decided to become a business:

We like to pay our taxes as a functional organisation that is a part of our society and a contributor to our shared democratic progress.

We do not want to rely on large corporate donors and their profits because they bring with them unwelcome influence and pressure over decision making.

We focus on creating a service that can stand as a long-term sustainable revenue structure depending only on individuals to carry out our work. 

The ability to compete and improve through the market forces us to create a better service.

We believe it is important to showcase that nature and conservation can be considered an economically viable industry through the services sector.

Instead of relying on accounting as a performance evaluation tool we have the pressure to ensure outcomes are transparent and can be assessed by all our members.

We want to be open to potential capital investment as a means to grow Mossy Earth's impact.

We decided early on that impact transparency was paramount to the success of our mission. The public is quite used to reports showcasing how much money was raised and how it was spent. This can provide some insight but does not actually guarantee or prove the on the ground impact. It only tells you how the money was spent and not what the resulting impact was.

Our goal is to build the necessary infrastructure so that every individual that contributes to our projects can verify their impact themselves. This includes using photos, GPS coordinates, polygons, open databases, and satellite monitoring to try and achieve this. We are not there yet but we have managed to setup quite a few of these and you can learn more about them in our transparency methodology page.

Mossy Earth's business ethos is to create independent and sustainable long-term funding mechanisms for impactful rewilding, reforestation & conservation projects.

Methodologies

Reforestation Methodology

Trust and Transparency

Rewilding Methodology

Business Ethos