Nursing oil palm plantations back to nature in Malaysian Borneo

Saving Hawai‘i’s Forests plants koa trees and other native plants to reforest plots of land degraded by grazing livestock. As a result, the group has noticed the return of native wildlife to the plot, many of which are endangered or threatened species.

In Brazil, the Friends of the Amazon Forest Institute is using the Miyawaki method in its reforestation projects to see fast results. The method requires planting several species of native trees randomly in organic soil and then allowing nature to run its course with little-to-no human intervention.

A Brazilian photographer and his wife set out to restore devastated land in the late 1990s by replanting the forest, which would in turn bring back the wildlife. To date the pair and their organization, Instituto Terra, have replanted more than 2 million trees, seen the return of over 500 different species of birds, mammals, amphibians, and flora, and brought back to life the 8 natural springs on the land. There only remains 10% of the land to restore, and at the same time they've also developed more than 700 educational projects that reach over 65,000 people across the nation.

Government initiatives, certification programs, ecological consultants, and international environmental associations are all part of Singapore's concerted effort to coexist with its wildlife and reduce impacts of climate change like air pollution and stress.

Communities in Ecuador are building a “bioeconomy” through ecotourism and sustainable agriculture instead of relying on oil extraction. This can help protect the country’s biodiversity and increase locals’ incomes.

Volunteers of a nonprofit tree-planting initiative in Paris are planting pocket forests, based on Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki’s method, to increase biodiversity and combat extreme heat. These mini-forests are made of native species planted close together at random to mimic a natural forest.

A researcher in Tasmania is working to create climate-resilient “super-kelp” that could survive in its new climate along the coastline and help absorb carbon to prevent it from being released into the atmosphere. Other conservationists around the world are using different techniques to revitalize its diminishing kelp forests. In California, they have hand-cleared 52 acres of invasive purple urchins from the seas to bring back its kelp forest. While kelp can be tricky to work with, rebuilding these forests is one way to combat climate change.

More golf courses are closing than are opening, allowing the rare opportunity to have open space in an urban environment. Restorations are becoming popular to allow wildlife and humans to make use of the natural space through the encouragement of different animals and plants to inhabit the same area as well as the development of parks and bike paths to foster human use.

Conservationists in Hawaii are growing seedlings of the critically endangered na’u tree alongside mycorrhizal fungi instead of fertilizers and pesticides to mimic their natural growing process. The fungi support the plant in a variety of ways, like sucking up more water and providing mineral nutrients, which helps the seedlings grow at a rapid pace.

Ecosia, a nonprofit search engine that uses its profits to support tree-planting initiatives, is working with the Jane Goodall Institute Austria to grow 200,000 trees in Uganda. The organizations work with communities to design the projects around their needs and then support locals through the process of growing trees.