Eden: People+Planet (formerly Eden Reforestation Projects) is a nonprofit NGO that works in developing countries to rebuild natural landscapes destroyed by deforestation. Eden works directly with communities experiencing extreme poverty resulting from the deforestation and destruction of the land that sustains them. The organization employs thousands of local community members and provides them with the education and tools necessary to plant, grow, and protect to maturity, millions of trees each year. Eden currently plants approximately 15 million trees a month, and in 2020 reached over 423 million trees planted of which over 225 million are mangrove trees.
Mission and history
In the fall of 2005, Ethiopia's then President of the Southern Nations Hailemariam Desalegn invited Dr. Stephen Fitch to help run an abandoned nursery and forest restoration project along the Udo Escarpment near Hawassa, Ethiopia. Fitch accepted the Prime Minister's offer and began to develop and implement what would eventually become Eden's Employ to Plant methodology: provide sustainable employment to local people to restore and protect their natural environment. Locals at Gallo Argesi were hired as the workforce, and within the first year of operation, over 200,000 trees were planted. By the end of the project in 2012, 16 million trees had been planted by over 3,500 Eden staff."2020 Reforestation Goals|Eden Reforestation Projects|Vlog" (2020) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TWUSDCQAGs Its international efforts have since expanded into other continents and developing countries. Nurseries and reforestation projects with locally hired employees have been established in Madagascar, Mozambique, Kenya, Ethiopia, Nepal, Indonesia, the Philippines, Haiti, Central America, and Brazil. Since its establishment, Eden has planted over 977 million trees across its project sites. On June 13, 2024, the NGO announced it had changed its name to Eden: People+Planet to " better represent the work [...] and align with industry growth and advancements".
Methodology
Eden is defined by its approach to engaging local communities in planting, maintaining, and guarding new forests. The process begins with communicating with government officials and local communities and prioritizing community needs. This encourages ongoing commitment to restoring and protecting the forests to protect their own livelihoods. The local community members are then hired to collect seeds, start nurseries, plant trees, and guard the newly emerged forests. Eden employs locals at a fair wage that is consistent with their economy. These workers are almost always from the ranks of the unemployed. The steady source of income helps them provide for their families, send their children to school, and participate and stimulate the local economy.
Eden focuses on planting native species. The emerging native species forests provide a habitat for wildlife, purify the water, control flooding, and erosion, and replenish the soil. Eden also prioritizes 10% of the trees to be agroforestry species. The agroforestry species are specifically intended for long-term sustainable community use. The community members benefit directly from the food, and the trees provide lumber and a fuel source. These same trees also help to reduce the cutting down of the newly restored forests and protected areas.
Recognizing that these new forests are vulnerable, Eden constructs guard towers at planting sites. Local community members are hired to serve as guards – a practice that has enabled more community members to have gainful employment and ongoing investment in the preservation and maintenance of their forests. Protection of the forests has expanded beyond the newly planted forests; in some areas, Eden also protects vital remnant forests that are in danger of being cut down.
Eden's growing success is partly defined by its cost-effective practices. By working in developing nations, hiring local people, and maintaining a simple approach to planting, Eden Projects keeps its overhead costs consistently low, with a price of 0.15 to 0.33 US cents per tree.
Verification process and survival rate
Eden monitors and verifies the progress of its newly planted forest restoration sites. The sites' GPS coordinates are mapped and recorded as a polygon. Photo and video recordings are taken to capture the before, during, and after stages of site planting progress. When possible, Eden uses satellite imagery and drone surveys to provide larger-scale images of planting sites. Each site undergoes an ongoing in-person verification process with trained personnel creating detailed field studies to record tree survival rates, growth rates, and species diversity.
In-person surveys conducted several years after the original planting have demonstrated the challenge in identifying which trees were planted by Eden Projects and which trees naturally regenerated. In Madagascar, Indonesia, and Mozambique, the initial survival rate of mangrove trees planted at restoration projects exceeds 80%. After the first few years, the newly planted mangrove trees began to produce and drop propagules, resulting in a proliferation of natural regeneration. In Nepal, the survival rates are following a similar pattern. The phenomena associated with natural regeneration has dramatically enhanced Eden's original planting numbers.
International impact
Ethiopia With the second largest population in Africa, Ethiopia has been hit by famine many times due to drought and a depletion of natural resources. The country has lost 98% of its forested regions in the last 50 years, largely due to villagers cutting down forests to cultivate crops on the land and produce charcoal for cooking and heating. Those practices had quickly turned productive land into desert, which led to an increase in poverty for the local communities.
Local villagers were hired to plant and care for trees at the Udo Three Hills Region and soon thereafter at a second Sidama Highlands site. After nine years, over 16 million trees were produced, planted, and protected at the hands of over 3,500 local village employees. Photographs taken before and after the reforestation show the complete transformation of the project sites from desertified land to healthy emerging forest.
The lessons learned in Ethiopia are what now defines the mission of Eden Reforestation Projects: provide a cost-effective process to alleviate extreme poverty through environmental stewardship. The success in Ethiopia led to Eden's expansion to other parts of the world, and new project sites are being explored in Ethiopia for opening in 2021.
Madagascar Famous for its unique biodiversity and lush forests, Madagascar has some of the rarest animal and plant species on the planet. However, more than 90% of Madagascar's original forests have been destroyed, wreaking havoc not only on plant and animal life but also on the ability of the local people to live sustainably off the land and sea. Along the coast, entire mangrove estuaries have been cut down, leaving mudflats to wash into the sea and destroying once-productive fisheries. Many fishers have ended up in indentured servitude in order to survive.
In 2007, Eden Reforestation Projects formed a local workforce that began to restore mangrove forests in the Mahajanga area of Madagascar. Local villagers were hired to clear the estuary, collect massive numbers of propagules, sort them by species, then return to the estuary at low tide to begin planting. Less than a decade later, a thriving mangrove forest had developed. The successful restoration of the mangroves also initiated the return of a healthy aquatic ecosystem: wildlife such as shrimp, algae, and flamingoes have returned to the newly restored area.
Eden expanded its work to over 60 sites in the northwest. Beginning in 2012, dry deciduous forest restoration systems were added to the equation. By hiring additional local employees, an extensive infrastructure was created, including guardhouses, fire towers, and seed banks. Eden Projects has also developed a nursery and reforestation leadership training center that emphasizes practical training, where local nursery managers gain hands-on experience in seedling management and effective reforestation techniques. These managers then partner with local area villages, launch new seedling nurseries, and begin producing, planting, and protecting trees.
Madagascar was Eden Projects' most prolific tree planting project nation. As of November 2020, over 360 million trees had been planted in Madagascar by Eden Projects employees, with an average of 14 million more trees being planted every month. Thousands of local villagers now had consistent employment and were now able to send their children to school, provide food and clothing for dependent family members, and launch innovative microenterprises."Good News About Trees|April Update" (2014) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuH-ELqCN3E
In 2018, Eden Projects began to manage 2 hectares (4.9 acres) of land within the city of Mahajanga as a conservatory for endangered wildlife. The Eden Nature Center was established, which enabled Eden Projects employees to rescue and rehabilitate rare tree species and vanishing animal species. Many of the animals were rehabilitated and then released into newly reforested areas as a means to repopulate the regions. The center also served as a community educational and research center.
In November 2024, Eden announced in an e-mail to donors that it had ended its partnership with the implementing partner in Madagascar. How Eden's decision would impact the various projects in which it had been involved in Madagascar was not specified.
Haiti Once covered by dense forests, Haiti is now one of the most environmentally degraded countries on the planet. A mere 2% of its original forests remain, and the United Nations estimates that 30% of those remaining trees are being destroyed every year. Today the main cause of this deforestation is charcoal production, which is consistently increasing in Haiti because it depends on charcoal as its primary source of fuel. The consequences have been devastating: massively destructive hurricanes, landslides, soil erosion, and subsequent declines in agricultural productivity are now hallmarks of the island nation. Considerable losses in biodiversity have also naturally followed Haiti's deforestation, and the abject poverty experienced by over 50% of Haiti's population has been directly attributed to its environmental degradation.
In 2010, Eden opened nursery sites in four distinct provinces, including Jacmel, and began producing trees immediately. With a focus on agroforestry, Eden Projects partnered with Providence University to begin training the younger generations in environmental care. Agroforestry trees are distributed to schools across project sites, where teachers are trained in the skills needed to start small nurseries and grow the seedlings. Eden Projects' work in Haiti has been successful: within a few years, the trees planted have become thriving, sustainable school and community forests. Eden Projects has since expanded its Haiti program to include singling. The singling process – also known as Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration – focuses on restoring native Bayawonn trees that were cut down for fuel wood and charcoal. As a coppice species, the Bayawonn trees that were cut down did not die; instead, the tree stumps began growing into thorny, bushy shrubs. Through the process of singling (cutting away all but one or two trunks), the shrubs grow back into thriving trees, and a healthy canopy grows fairly quickly. Eden Projects' singling work in Haiti has resulted in diverse forests reemerging in areas that were once completely deforested and desertified.