Planting trees is something most people can get behind, and tens of thousands of reforestation projects now operate worldwide. However, for donors and funders who want to support these efforts, it can be hard to identify which organizations to trust with their money and even more difficult to determine which are effective. “I would give talks, and people would ask, ‘Who should I donate my money to?'” Karen Holl, a professor at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) and reforestation expert, told Mongabay. “There was really no standardized way to answer that question.” So how can a tree investor decide what organizations to support? What questions should ensure money goes toward the best outcomes for biodiversity, climate and people? A forest corridor planted by local community as part of Instituto de Pesquisas Ecológicas (IPÊ) “Corridors for Life” project in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. Photo courtesy of IPÊ. To help answer those questions, Holl and UCSC postdoctoral researcher Spencer Schubert spent more than a year evaluating “intermediary organizations,” the major groups that channel funding and resources to local tree-planting projects around the world. Between October 2024 and June 2025, the team contacted more than 125 organizations. Seventy completed detailed surveys, while researchers performed systematic reviews of websites and public reports for the rest. Mongabay has now launched this research as the Global Reforestation Organization Directory. The directory was developed in collaboration with Mongabay and the research was funded by the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience and the MacArthur Foundation Chair at the…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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