CEO Newsletter #5 | Restoration: A Brilliant Business Strategy

By Florent Kaiser, CEO, Global Forest Generation
Co-founder, Acción Andina

Of all the numbers we’ve shared, one means the most: 40,000. That’s the number of people who’ve joined Acción Andina’s restoration movement this year—working in nurseries, planting trees, and protecting forests across the steep slopes of the Andes. In some of the most remote places on Earth, entire communities have mobilized around one shared purpose: to plant trees that bring water back.

It started with trees—but it was never just about trees. Co-founder Constantino Aucca understood that real restoration is about relationships: between people, land, and water. By reviving ancestral Andean principles of collective work, Acción Andina became more than a project—it became a movement. When people plant together—sometimes up to 150,000 native trees in a day—they aren’t just restoring ecosystems. They’re reclaiming stewardship over their ancestral territories.

Now, we’re expanding our work beyond forests to restore grasslands, wetlands, and peatlands—ecosystems vital for water security. The world may have moved on from counting trees, but we haven’t lost sight of what truly matters: healthy ecosystems, reliable water, and communities empowered to protect both. Whether you fund a tree or a watershed, you’re helping turn restoration into a strategy that sustains life.

One way to feel the heart of this movement, we invite you to step into the high-altitude forests of Ecuador through a recent video produced by the G20 Global Land Initiative. It captures the spirit of Acción Andina on the ground—where community, culture, and conservation come together in the Andes. Watch as local leaders and restoration champions share what this work means to them, and how reforestation is restoring not just ecosystems, but hope and connection. Watch the video here ›

What’s Happening and What’s Next?

• Updated data on Restoration Scope: You can now find data from the most recent plantings in 2025 on our MRV platform Restoration Scope. Acción Andina partners reported planting an impressive 12,577,600 trees to date. The data from the latest season is still being verified but we are almost through it!
• Enhancing Our MRV Program with Water and Social Water: Acción Andina is pleased to welcome anthropologist Benito Elmer Segura Jiménez as our new Andean Communities and Society Officer. Elmer is leading efforts to gather social impact data through interviews, observations, and surveys aligned with the international Water Impact Monitoring Framework. This pilot initiative will help us quantify the social return on investment (SROI) of our restoration work—particularly its impact on water security. Elmer is also completing an evaluation and developing protocols across the organization to ensure a safe and supportive environment for women’s participation.

Challenges We’re Facing

• Visiting Acción Andina sites: Those of you who have been to one of Acción Andina’s project sites and participated in a planting festival high up on the mountains can attest that the journey is life-changing. I hope each and every one of you will join us one day. And yet, these visits are difficult for a small staff to arrange and highly dependent on the weather. Please know that we are looking at ways to bring more of you to the sites and witness what this work means for these communities and these landscapes! Please let us know if you are interested in joining us on a future visit.
• Tree survival rates in the face of drought: Reforesting the high Andes is a complex effort in one of the most extreme and fragile ecosystems on Earth. Early tree survival rates average 60–80% within the first three years, with long-term, natural survival stabilizing around 40–60%—strong outcomes given the harsh conditions. In recent years, however, increasing droughts and delayed rainfall linked to climate variability have begun to affect these rates. We are closely monitoring changes across key watersheds to assess long-term forest resilience and adapt our restoration strategies accordingly.

How You Can Help Today

• Drones for monitoring: Acción Andina staff have requested five additional drones to aid their monitoring work across projects in Peru and Ecuador. Drones cost US$ 1,500 each. Can you help?
• Wildfire readiness: As another wildfire season in the Andes is coming up, we are seeking funding of US$ 50,000 to co-design a wildfire protection program with our local NGO leaders and communities to prevent and mitigate forest fires.
• Reforestation in 2026: as we are planning our next reforestation season to plant an additional 3.5-5 million trees next year alone, we are seeking major reforestation funders to join our efforts. Contact us to discuss your goals and how we could achieve them together.