Science
Restoration: second nature to us
Guided by our world-leading Scientific Advisory Board, Rainforest Builder is science-led and data-driven, combining local knowledge with international research expertise.
Our global team of scientists has over 100 peer-reviewed publications to its name and ensures that our projects’ designs are both founded on robust social and restoration science and also that all elements of our operations are focused on continuous learning and improvement.
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A framework for growth
Our approach is technology-enabled – but we prioritise nature over novelty.
Satellites and drones using multispectral and LIDAR imagery increase the accuracy and transparency of our monitoring, while bioacoustics and eDNA sampling have enabled us to deepen our ecological understanding of our restoration landscapes.
There is no better technology than photosynthesis.
Our active restoration process runs from selecting high-quality seed, producing and planting high-quality seedlings to maintaining and protecting the emerging forest. We harness natural processes via the Framework Species Method to drive rapid recovery of forests’ biomass, biodiversity and structural complexity. Through careful species selection and intensive forestry interventions we accelerate forests’ recovery by up to three times as compared with those natural processes alone.
3x faster
~85%
biomass by year 20
Accelerating reforestation is critical for biodiversity.
Tropical rainforests support up to 80% of the world’s species, despite occupying only 6% of the land area. Many of these species are extremely sensitive to human impacts, surviving only in areas with large expanses of natural forest cover.
Rainforest Builder is restoring this forest cover, expanding habitats of thousands of species that rely on large expanses of natural forest cover to survive.
To rebuild these ecosystems, we must ensure our restored forests have prolific growth rates and a complex vertical canopy structure. Our restoration recipe is tailored, with carefully-selected framework species that provide the basic architecture for the system to flourish.
Our operations stand to benefit highly threatened target species in the Upper Guinean Forest, including the endangered Chimpanzee, Pygmy Hippopotamus, and Timneh Parrot, among many others.
Our Scientific Advisory Board
Professor David Edwards is Professor of Plant Ecology, Head of the Tropical Ecology and Conservation Group, and Director of the Centre for Global Wood Security. He has extensive experience quantifying the biodiversity and carbon outcomes of restoration across tropical forest ecosystems globally. He has focused on active and passive restoration techniques applied in heavily degraded forests.
Prof. David Edwards
Professor Rachael Garrett's research examines the drivers and impacts of land change, with a focus on the social and economic dynamics of commodity production systems in forest landscapes.
Prof. Rachael Garrett
Professor John Healey studies the ecology and sustainable management of forests and agroforestry systems, with a focus on ecosystem services. His work examines forest dynamics linked to impacts of disturbance and climate change, including a long record of research examining forest degradation and landscape-scale restoration, with a major focus on tropical Africa.
Prof. John Healey
Professor Karen Holl is a leading researcher in the sphere of tropical restoration science. Karen’s work focuses on understanding the barriers to ecosystem restoration in degraded landscapes, and finding the best management techniques to overcome those barriers – particularly in tropical rainforest systems.
Prof. Karen Holl
Professor Casey Ryan is a leading expert in land systems science, with a particular interest in the use of remote sensing to measure land-use change and its drivers. His globally impactful research includes a large body of work examining the causes and consequences of land-use change in rural Africa.
Prof. Casey Ryan
Collaborative Institutions
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