In northern Thailand, the once-lush forests of Nan Province tell a story familiar across the region: one of rapid land-use change, deforestation, and the widening disconnect between urban consumers and rural farmers.
As over 1,664,000 rai (266,240 hectares) of Nan’s forest was lost to maize cultivation for animal feed, this has triggered downstream effects like flash floods and increased sedimentation along the Chao Phraya River, negatively impacting Bangkok and the rest of central Thailand.
Against this backdrop, RECOFTC — an international nonprofit dedicated to empowering forest communities across the Asia-Pacific — has launched Trees4All, a pioneering initiative that links urban supporters directly with highland farmers. By sponsoring trees for 100 baht each, donors help fund the restoration of degraded lands while supporting local livelihoods.
And through transparent monitoring via trees4allthailand.org, Contributors can trace the progress of their trees and the communities nurturing them — turning climate action into something visible, measurable and personal.
“The core intention of Trees4All is to create a practical tool that enables individuals and private-sector actors to easily take climate action,” explains Warangkana “Nok” Rattanarat, RECOFTC’s Country Program Director for Thailand. “At the same time, the project ensures that support from the urban public reaches local communities directly, maximizing benefits for them.”
Warangkana believes that “friendly scientific data and practical technology” can bridge the gap between awareness and action, putting local people at the forefront of implementation.
In this conversation, we speak with Khun Nok about how Trees4All is transforming Nan’s landscapes, empowering communities to adapt to climate change, and offering a replicable model of forest restoration that unites cities and villages in shared responsibility for Thailand’s future.
For the last 3 decades, RECOFTC has worked to empower communities to manage their forests sustainably. How has this mission evolved, in the context of today’s climate change and rapid land-use change?
To ensure RECOFTC’s mission can respond to the current climate and land use challenges, we have broadened our approach to forest-related work. Rather than focusing solely on forests, we have adopted a “forest landscape-based approach” that considers the broader landscape context. This ensures our work encompasses forests as well as other types of land use, such as agriculture in forest areas.
This shift is crucial because one of the main drivers of global deforestation, as well as in Thailand, has been the conversion of forests into agricultural land, especially for monoculture farming.
Furthermore, RECOFTC has been working to connect communities in forest landscapes and the urban public, encouraging city dwellers to support local communities and take action for forest landscapes and climate.
What inspired the creation of the Trees4All program in Nan Province, and why was Nan chosen as the starting point?
Nan Province has faced significant deforestation, having lost more than 1,664,000 rai (266,240 hectares) of forest area over the past two decades. The main cause has been the conversion of forest area into agricultural land, particularly for maize cultivation for animal feed production.
Deforestation in Nan is deeply concerning, as the Nan River watershed within it contributes more than 40% of the water flow into the Chao Phraya River, which in turn has sustained central Thailand and Bangkok for generations.
The Trees4All project in Nan Province is intended to serve as a bridge connecting downstream communities (those who benefit from Nan’s upstream forest landscapes and are also consumers, including urban dwellers) with upstream farmers. Our project enables them to restore ecosystem together – starting with donating, planting, and monitoring trees in agricultural landscapes in the watershed forest area.
The monitoring website (trees4allthailand.org) is an impressive innovation. How has this transparency tool changed the way donors and farmers interact?
Trees4All was intended to bridge the gap between people living far from forests and local communities in forest landscapes.
Engagement and trust between donors and farmers is critical to our success. That’s why we put great effort into developing a publicly available monitoring system to ensure that all tree-planting donations are traceable and lead to measurable impacts on both ecosystems and local livelihoods.
Furthermore, tree data for the donors on trees4allthailand.org come from Trees4All farmers, with RECOFTC’s support in reviewing and verifying the data to ensure accuracy. The tangible data on our tree-planting initiative has also attracted further support from major national and international organizations, such as Planeterra.
Trees4All fosters a sense of responsibility among farmers to care for the trees on behalf of the donors, as the project conducts annual progress reports and regularly organizes site visits for donors to see the planting sites. This ongoing engagement has helped create motivation and pride among participating farmers.
The farmers also receive training and capacity building to enhance their knowledge and skills in tree growth measurement and data reporting through scientific and digital tools, allowing them to gain hands-on experience with new technologies.
Image courtesy of RECOFTC
How many donors or benefactors have participated in your tree-planting initiatives?
Over 2,600 individuals and companies have both donated and contributed to tree planting over the past three years. Donors can access detailed tree-related information from their contributions, including names of farmers who planted their trees, the exact geographic coordinates of their trees, tree heights from the first to third years, tree health scores (which provide an easy-to-understand overview of each tree’s condition), and photos from planting sites, making the data more transparent and tangible for the donors.
In addition, tree data reporting is based on donors’ consent to share their email addresses. If Trees4All donors agree to share their email addresses with us to receive updates about their trees, they can also receive other project-related news, including invitations to events, activities, and discussion sessions where farmers and guest speakers are invited to share their experiences and ideas related to the project.
This allows donors to meet farmer representatives and learn more about the project’s stories and impacts firsthand.
How do you measure success beyond the number of trees planted—for instance, in terms of biodiversity, soil restoration, or community resilience?
Tree planting is only the starting point of forest landscape restoration. Our ultimate goal is to drive transformative change that enhances the ecosystem-based adaptive capacities of local communities.
That’s why our interventions go beyond planting perennial trees, and now include crop diversification and animal raising such as stingless bees and goats, which provide both ecological and economic benefits.
In the short term, we promote on-farm biodiversity by ensuring diversification of crops, plants, and animals and insects. We have also set up sampling plots to assess soil quality and composition.
In addition, our project has collected baseline data on how local farmers in project sites perceive climate change and their ability to cope with its impacts. This information will be reassessed to measure how communities strengthen their capacities to adapt to climate change over time.
Photo credit: RECOFTC Thailand
Could you share any inspiring stories of farmers whose livelihoods have been transformed through Trees4All?
One of our initiatives includes promoting alternative livelihood development to generate short-term income while enhancing on-farm biodiversity. One example is raising stingless bees, a species similar to honeybees that produces medicinal honey. Farmers are encouraged to keep stingless bees in their orchards to enhance pollination.
Although our stingless bee honey production has not yet reached a commercial scale, the farmers are already benefiting from it. This year, fruit trees in their orchards have shown a significant increase in fruit set.
Moreover, keeping stingless bees has led farmers to reduce the use of chemicals and open burning, as stingless bees are highly sensitive to pesticides and smoke.
The farmers have also formed and been building their community-based enterprise with the goal of producing stingless bee honey collectively and processing it into value-added products, such as soap, which they hope will become an additional source of income in the future.
Trees4All aims to become a replicable model for forest restoration. What elements of this model are most transferable to other regions in Thailand or the Asia-Pacific?
Trees4All consists of three key components. The first is crowdfunding, the second is tree planting and enhancing on-farm biodiversity, including the promotion of alternative livelihoods, and the third is monitoring and reporting.
The project has established an online system that allows donors to track the trees they have funded and their growth. Results are reported over a three-year period.
Photo credit: RECOFTC
RECOFTC aims to expand this model to other areas in Nan Province, such as supporting restoration and conservation-friendly agricultural systems in Doi Phu Kha National Park, as well as other regions of Thailand.
This approach can also be scaled to other areas in the region, particularly the second and third components, which focus on tree planting, enhancing on-farm biodiversity (agroforestry), and systematic monitoring of tree growth.
Photo credit: RECOFTC
Photo credit: RECOFTC
What lessons from Trees4All could guide Thailand’s broader goal of reaching 55 percent forest cover by 2037?
After three years of implementation, we believe that Trees4All has created a viable model.
To date, more than 2,600 supporters have contributed over THB 4.8 million from within Thailand and THB 1.7 million from overseas. Their contributions have enabled the planting of over 80,000 trees, covering approximately 800 rai.
We manage these activities collaboratively with community organizations and farmers, who are deeply involved in the process. We believe that when local communities participate actively, sharing both responsibility and benefits, they will recognize the importance of monitoring and caring for the trees. The project has achieved a tree survival rate of over 90%.
Finally, we have learned that forest ecosystem restoration work is most effective when it is linked to socio-economic development, particularly sustainable livelihoods. This creates real incentives for communities to participate in these initiatives.
Trees4All does not end at planting trees for watershed forest landscape restoration; it extends to the development of regenerative agricultural systems, including market-oriented livestock production and community-based enterprise development. By developing local businesses systematically and adding value to local products, we can help farmers gain more diverse and sustainable sources of income, even under the escalating climate crisis.
