Cooling the earth is about bringing back the forests of the world. Not just because forests absorb and store huge amounts of carbon dioxide, but because they are a thick living layer on the ground; buffering water, reducing winds, making temperatures bearable. If you’ve ever walked into a forest on a blazing hot summer day, you know what forests can do. We have to create this effect on a global scale.

The challenge in reforesting the planet is not that the trees won’t grow. In many places, forest naturally returns when people do nothing: Think about a neglected backyard. The challenge is that people also want to use the land for agriculture. There are many mouths to feed all around the world, so we cannot just give this precious land away to the wilderness, right?

Well, what looks like a conflict is actually an opportunity. Farm and forest can not only coexist, they can be one and the same! You might have heard of things like food forests or agroforestry: bringing back trees into the farming system. This results in a stronger, more diverse and more profitable farm which also creates the positive effects of forests: Rushing creeks, cool air and captured carbon dioxide.

Putting these ideas into practice, The Green Branch matches farms with forest in Brazil. Our reforestation projects are turning the bare hills of degraded cattle ranches into regenerative carbon farms. In our first project, we are bringing back natural, biodiverse forest on 470 hectares of land. That’s more than 950 football fields!

By compensating your CO₂-emissions with The Green Branch you’re investing in the cooling shade of forests. You’re buying a natural air conditioner that will work for decades to come!

Thomas Heger The Green Branch