Restoring native forest with Mbyá-Guaraní indigenous community

Opening

ApeForest is a reforestation marketplace that connects people who want to protect nature with indigenous and local communities who know how to restore it. We are pre-launch and seeking funding to plant our first 300 trees alongside our confirmed community partner, the Mbyá-Guaraní community of Tekoá Kuaray Rese, and validate our platform in the field.

Our Mission

We believe that lasting ecological restoration only happens when the people with the deepest relationship to the land are the ones leading it. Indigenous and local communities are not beneficiaries of conservation, they are its most capable practitioners. ApeForest exists to make their work visible, financially viable, and scientifically credible. We are building a marketplace where every transaction is an act of ecological and social restoration  and where buyers don't just purchase a tree, they join a community of people learning to understand the ecosystems they are helping restore.

Background & Problem

The world lost 100 million hectares of forest between 2000 and 2020. Wildlife populations have declined by 73%. Deforestation accounts for approximately 10% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. The dominant corporate response, planting monoculture forests to absorb CO₂ on paper, is creating "green deserts" with no biodiversity, no soil health, and no functioning ecosystems. Nature is being reduced to a carbon accounting tool.

At the same time, the communities who know best how to restore native ecosystems have no access to financing. They are too small to attract institutional investors, lack digital tools, and have no platform to monetize their ecological knowledge. The result: the people most capable of healing the land are systematically excluded from the resources needed to do so.

Solution

ApeForest exclusively finances multi-species, native ecosystem restoration, no monocultures, no greenwashing. Our platform allows individuals to purchase verified, traceable trees from projects led by indigenous and local communities, receive updates from the field, and track the real ecological and social impact of their contribution. Each project includes educational content rooted in local ecological knowledge and community practice.

Our first MVP project is a windbreak forest with the Mbyá-Guaraní community of Tekoá Kuaray Rese, 70 indigenous people on 46 hectares in Osório, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The project will plant 300 trees across 18 native species (153 pioneers, 92 secondary, 55 climax) to protect crops and build climate resilience. Total investment required: €6,000. Every euro is transparently allocated. €3.50 per tree to farmer labor, €8 to native seedlings and materials, €1 to an emergency climate resilience fund, and €4 to platform operations.

Opportunity

ApeForest is more than a funding mechanism, it is an educational and community platform. Each project unlocks content on regenerative ecosystems, native species, and indigenous land practices. Schools and startups can co-fund projects through Climate Literacy Workshops, connecting institutional sustainability goals to real, verifiable impact on the ground. As the platform scales, it creates a direct economic pipeline between conscious consumers and the communities who steward biodiversity at the frontline of climate change.

How We Work

We work exclusively with multi-species, native ecosystem projects. Our species database tracks biodiversity contribution with precision, not as a marketing tool, but as a genuine measure of ecosystem recovery. Community nurseries producing native seedlings are at the heart of every project, stimulating local agroecological economies alongside ecological restoration.

Tracking Impact

Every tree on ApeForest is tracked and verified. Buyers receive a personal impact dashboard showing trees planted, CO₂ sequestered, and biodiversity contribution. Field monitoring is conducted by forestry experts and scientific partners, with regular photo and story updates sent directly from the communities. To ensure our tracking and platform tools work before launch, we are currently running a data validation pilot at Conceito Arte in Sarandi, Porto Alegre, a Miyawaki micro-forest of 300 trees and 35 species already planted in a neighborhood devastated by the 2024 Rio Grande do Sul floods. This existing forest gives us a live dataset to calibrate our data collection, impact tracking, and reporting systems before the first funded planting begins.

Our Experience

ApeForest is pre-launch but not starting from zero. We have validated our platform tools against a real, living forest at Conceito Arte. We have a confirmed community partnership with the Mbyá-Guaraní of Tekoá Kuaray Rese, and direct relationships with forestry agronomists, scientific partners, and conservation networks. The funding from this round will go entirely toward our first live project, planting 300 native trees with Tekoá Kuaray Rese, putting €6,000 directly into indigenous hands, and proving that nature-positive reforestation led by indigenous communities, verified by science, and funded by people is a viable and scalable model.