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We have partnered with Veritree to ensure the highest level of trust and transparency for our customers, partners and businesses who plant trees with Carma.
Who is Veritree?
Veritree connects Carma to verified tree planting projects that share our belief in reforestation as a climate change solution. They engage local communities worldwide in data-driven tree planting, ensuring transparency and accountability.
Why Veritree?
This partnership with veritree provides confidence that the impacts of our efforts in investing in nature-based solutions are real, measured and verified. Through this partnership, we ensure the right trees are planted in the right place and the trees, once planted, are staying on the ground as intended.
How can you confirm our trees are actually being planted?
Veritree employs groundbreaking technology for visibility and transparency. They verify and monitor the impact of your tree planting efforts to ensure accountability and transparency. Veritree utilises on-the-ground monitoring with mobile devices in the hands of local community members, creating transparency and trust through data and tools that revitalise ecosystems and strengthen communities.
They also use blockchain technology to provide sponsors with a fully integrated platform supporting field-level data collection, site planning, inventory management, and impact monitoring. This system gathers data from the first day of tree planting, providing greater transparency into the entire process.
What trees are you planting with Veritree?
As our partnership with Veritree develops we will be investing in as many projects as possible. Right now we are planting mangroves in Mteza Creek, Kenya. Mangroves are short, bushy trees that grow in saltwater along coastlines and in intertidal zones.
Located on the Likoni river delta, this mangrove forest helps stabilise and protect the landscape from erosion and creates valuable nurseries in a unique ecosystem.
Coastal Kenya is one of the least developed regions of the country, with more than 62% living below the poverty line. These communities are dependent on mangrove ecosystems for employment, livelihood, and nutrition.
In restoring the mangrove estuary, which is rich in biodiversity, this project will provide fishing grounds for local people. This helps to create additional income streams, including sustainable harvests from the mangrove forests. The restored forests will also help to stabilise coastlines. This will act as a vital line of defence to protect the land and the communities during tropical storms.
Who is planting our trees?
Veritrees tree planting partners in Kenya are EarthLungs, the Government of Kenya (the Kenyan Forest Service) and local community members, Veritree work alongside these organisations to ensure your trees are planted, protected and verified.
How can we ensure trees will be there for a long period of time?
Veritree works closely with local communities to showcase the value of newly planted forests. Through education and involvement in monitoring and reporting, local communities develop a deep sense of ownership and pride over their trees, leading to effective long-term management.
To ensure permanence, Veritree gathers on-the-ground monitoring, and tree planting funds contribute to protection measures. By year 5 and beyond, remote sensing (e.g, satellite imagery) is incorporated to monitor the long-term growth of the forest.
How can we ensure the land will be protected throughout the years?
When Veritree set up a project they will collaborate with local governments like the Kenyan Forestry Service to be sure that we have the proper land rights in place. They also work to be sure the drivers of degradation are addressed. This includes environmental tidal risk, fire risk, soil.
Then they also address the geopolitical risks. For example, setting up proper access to wood, energy, education.
If the drivers of degradation are properly addressed there is a far lower chance of trees being illegally harvested. The local communities do their best to protect the forest as they are the ones that plant it and benefit from a living forest. It's also agreed upon with the Kenyan Forestry Service everyone will do what they can to protect the area.
After 3 years we monitor the regions that have been restored using geospatial data that will indicate if any illegal poaching has occurred.
We can never guarantee 100% survivability, however we can do everything we can in an effective and efficient manner to achieve a healthy outcome.
Carma and Veritree
We will be working very close with Veritree over the coming months to ensure all our overseas trees are funded correctly and that once planted we have full visibility that is reflected in the Carma impact Dashboard.
We hope after reading this you are just as excited about our new partnership as we are! Of course, as always, if you have any questions please feel free to email customer.services@carma.earth. Your feedback and questions are always welcome!
