Beyond the Canopy – Détails, épisodes et analyse

We guarantee an informal yet highly interesting talk for your morning, afternoon, or evening coffee (or tea if that's your kind of cup).

Breece has a lot of exciting stories to tell!

Breece Robertson has more than 20 years of experience leading collaborative and strategic initiatives that leverage geospatial technologies for land, water, equity, and climate issues. She is a master of community-driven GIS approaches for strategic land protection.

Breece currently holds the position of Director of Impact Assessment and Monitoring at One Tree Planted, a global environmental restoration and reforestation organization. She is the author of the book "Protecting the Places We Love: Conservation Strategies for Entrusted Lands and Parks":

From 2001 - 2019, Breece led GIS, research, and planning teams at The Trust for Public Land that protected 3,000+ places and saved 2+ million acres of land, while serving over 9 million people.

Esri, the world’s leader in geographic information system (GIS) technology, has honored Breece twice for innovation in helping communities meet park and conservation goals. In 2006, she was awarded the Esri Special Achievement in GIS award, and in 2012, the “Making a Difference” award.

Breece loves exploring remote Southwest canyons, hiking tall mountains, foraging for mushrooms, snorkeling with marine life, and playing the mandolin. She has two awesome pups and a wonderful partner.

Meet her this November by adding the coffee and geo-transparency talk in your calendar and see you soon!

More about Breece Robertson

More about explorer.land

Episode image: Photo by Explore with Joshua

Paul Burgers, Ph.D.

In this episode, Food forests feed and store carbon Paul Burgers the Founder and CEO of CO2 Operate B.V. and Gula Gula, will explain and share his experiences of what it takes to build up and scale a community-driven agro-forest project. 

Email: p.burgers@co2operate.nl 

Projects: https://explorer.land/x/organization/co2/

Website: https://gulagula.org/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/burgerspaul/

About

In the Interview, Paul will describe how carbon credits bring in the necessary funding to kick-start the on the ground planting activities while growing cash crops such as coffee, cinnamon, and clove build in the long-term revenue component for the farmers.

We will learn what are the practical steps of establishing a sustainable food forest that can take up also a lot of carbon:

• finding a fair agreement with the local farmers
• developing cost-effective establishment and maintenance methods such as Assisted Natura Regeneration methods
• integrating the valuable local knowledge of the farmers
• establishment of nurseries close to the planting sites
• etc.

Further, we hear what has inspired and motivated Paul to end his classical scientific career and  to move into active project development with more action research. His new work has enabled him to give back findings and results from research and implement them for a positive impact. We learn, that developing such a project in a developing context requires cultural sensitivity and understanding of local social structures to enable a smooth operation. We learn that challenges, even such as corruption, lack of leadership, and poor tree survival rates, can become lessons to learn from.

We warmly welcome you to listen to this inspirational and insightful episode!

About Forest Landscape Stories

Healthy forest landscapes are a mosaic of different zones: conservation, timber production, and regenerative agriculture. Water, air, nutrients, and energy flows connect these zones. Living organisms, including us, are constantly shaping these landscapes in a good or bad way.  

In this podcast, we will be sharing stories of inspiring people and their projects. We learn about their way of thinking, their vision, and their passion. We will try to understand what methods have enabled successful landscape restoration. Restoration of landscapes that inspire, feed, and protect.

Learn more about our work: OpenForests

Tell your project story through your project: explorer.land

Download our free storytelling guide: DOWNLOAD

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Sources:

Learning from nature: the successful germination of indigenous timber species surian: https://explorer.land/x/project/vcm/post/uTopi8/

Forest sounds from the Netherlands

https://freesound.org/people/klankbeeld/sounds/465504/

Indonesia forest sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/wild_rumpus/leuser-ecosytem-ache-sumatra-indonesia

About

In this Forest Landscape Stories episode, we will learn about the afforestation method developed by Dr. Miyawaki, a Japanese botanist and expert in plant ecology and natural forests. His method results in maintenance-free, wild, and native forests. These forests grow in cities, along roads, around buildings, and in our own gardens. They even grow on very degraded land, under extreme conditions.

We will learn about the six-step process that everyone can employ to grow a forest.

Check out the Open Source guide on how to Do-It-Yourself

Video tutorials on how to make your own forest will be available soon. You can follow the related Kickstarter page here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shubzsharma/video-tutorials-to-make-your-own-forest/description

Shubhendu Sharma

This episode’s guest is Shubhendu Sharma. Shubhendu started his career as an engineer with Toyota. A forest planting seminar by Dr. Miyawaki inspired Shubhendu to establish his own social tree planting company, Afforestt, in 2011. Besides being a successful entrepreneur who has planted over 130 forests in 10 countries, Shubhendu inspired the worldwide afforestation community with his TED talks.

Contact:

Email: info@afforestt.com

Website: https://www.afforestt.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/afforestt

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/afforestt

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afforestt/

 

What we learn

Shubhendu left his secure job at Toyota to start his own afforestation company. We get to know why and how this decision changed his perspective and vision with regards to his work.

Shubhendu has also published on the Dr. Miyawaki afforestation method. With his process of planting dense and tiny forests, he has also reframed the idea of what can be a forest. Forests can be very small and planted almost everywhere.

He has inspired dozens of people and organizations to create hundreds of forests around the world. These forests grow in different climatic conditions, including on very degraded sites.

Shubhendu explains in detail how his forest creation process works and this information is available freely. Maintenance-free forests can be designed to deliver specific services like fruits, and noise and pollution reduction. He also explains how forests create a healthy environment for people and endangered species.

Shubhendu motivates us all, and especially the younger generation, to get our hands dirty and plant lasting forests. Forests that restore and preserve life through native vegetation.

About Forest Landscape Stories

Healthy forest landscapes are a mosaic of different zones: conservation, timber production, and regenerative agriculture. Water, air, nutrients, and energy flows connect these zones. Living organisms, including us, are constantly shaping these landscapes in a good or bad way.  

In this podcast, we will be sharing stories of inspiring people and their projects. We learn about their way of thinking, their vision, and their passion. We will try to understand what methods have enabled successful landscape restoration. Restoration of landscapes that inspire, feed, and protect.

Learn more about our work: OpenForests

Tell your project story through your project: explorer.land

Download our free storytelling guide: DOWNLOAD

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Facts about Bamboo

There are around 30 million hectares of bamboo in tropical and subtropical areas of the world. It is one of the fastest growing plants on earth. Certain species can grow up to 1-meter a day. Even though some Bamboo species grow very tall like trees, Bamboo belongs to the grass family.

Bamboo and Rattan can contribute to livelihoods in many ways; providing food, fiber, and fuel which provide the basis for thousands of different products. The Bamboo sector is estimated to be worth 60 billion USD a year.

Topics covered
In this episode, Brian discusses the potential for further development of the Bamboo and Rattan production as a means to forest landscape restoration and local income generation.

We learn about Brian’s inspiring work and how he has adopted a multidisciplinary skill set which is critical to his role at INBAR and useful when considering the further development of the Bamboo and Rattan sector.

Brian will give us an overview of the variety of products which can be made from Bamboo and Rattan and put a focus on recent innovations and high-tech products.
Besides the unquestionable positive contributions of Bamboo, we will also discuss the downsides, e.g. the growing of Bamboo in large monocultures and the role certification can play in improving sustainable production and post-production.

Finally, we will learn more about exemplary and successful sustainable Bamboo-based landscape restoration initiatives which present useful models of how to scale sustainable Bamboo production whilst having a positive impact on forest landscapes and livelihoods.

More information about the guest
Guest: Brian Cohen, cbrian@inbar.int
Organization: INBAR

About Forest Landscape Stories

We believe, that positive examples of successful restoration projects can inspire and catalyze positive action.

In this podcast series, you will learn about outstanding people, organizations and projects and how they have contributed in their unique way to the restoration of healthy landscapes.

Learn more about our work: OpenForests
Tell your project story through your project: explorer.land
Download our free storytelling guide: DOWNLOAD

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Background of Izabal Agro-Forest

Interactive project exploration at explorer.land

Izabal Agro-Forest, S.A. (IAF) is an award-winning farm and timberland management company headquartered in Guatemala.

in 1989 IAF started establishing its first production forests. They started with rubber and teak. 3 years later in 1992 IAF has increased the number of tree species and also planted and managed threatened species like Rosewood, Mahogany, Tropical Cedar and Zebrawood.

In recent years IAF has strengthened its agroforestry component by also integrating fine-flavor cacao, vanilla, coconut, and avocado. But they did not stop there. In addition, they manage trials of flowering and aromatic species grown for distillation and the production of very valuable essential oils.

In 2003 this innovative plantation received the Guatemalan National Forestry Institute Award for the best hardwood plantation. And 2007 the plantation received FSC “smartwood” certification. In 2014 it was recognized by the International Timber and Trade Organization (ITTO) as one of the best plantations in Guatemala.
IAF as a company has grown beyond its own farm. Today, it is serving institutional and private clients in developing and managing bio-diverse forest and agroforest farms on their behalf.

Contact of Juan Bronson: juan@izabalagroforest.com
More about Izabal Agro-Forests

Topics

• Juan decribes his typical work day.
• We discuss the differences between conventional farms and agroforestry systems.
• Juan explains the challenges of plating Mahogani and how they have overcome the threat of the Mahogani Shoot-Borer.
• We learn what makes agroforestry systems interesting from an investors perspective.
• Juan describes measures to capture the value within the value chain for cacao, vanilla, timber.
• We learn about the innovation of planting a tone wood for growing tree species used in instrument building.
• Juan explains how our culture can learn from the principles of agroforestry.
• Juan's answer to the leading question: Do only industrial monoculture forest plantations can yield reasonable returns? No!

About Forest Landscape Stories

We believe, that more positive examples of successful restoration projects can inspire and catalyze positive action.

In this podcast you will learn about outstanding people and projects. How they have contributed in their unique way to the restoration of healthy landscapes.

• Learn more about our work: OpenForests
• Tell your project story through you project: explorer.land
• Download our free storytelling guide: DOWNLOAD

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Data privacy

In this episode , our host Alexander Watson is joined by Andreas Eke, co-founder of The Generation Forest, a pioneer in tropical forestry with over 30 years of experience. Join us as we explore what makes a high-quality reforestation project. Andreas reveals how they've developed a unique model that blends ecological sustainability with economic viability, creating productive, biodiverse, and resilient forests. He discusses the concept of "engineered naturalness" and how their approach challenges traditional forestry methods.

In this episode, Alexander Watson (Founder & CEO, OpenForests) sits down with Mathias Perobelli Schmidt, Agroforestry Investment Specialist at Ecosia, to unpack the concept of Circular Funding—a regenerative finance model that recycles returns into tree-planting, agroforestry, and forest conservation rather than paying dividends. We explore outcome-based loans, how biodiversity and social impact de-risk projects, and real investments across Latin America. Hit subscribe, join the conversation, and let's grow a movement Beyond the Canopy.

Welcome to Beyond the Canopy — the podcast by OpenForests, where nature takes center stage. From climate finance to forest technologies, from policies to on-the-ground impact — we bring you bold conversations with those shaping the future of nature restoration and conservation.

In this episode, Alexander Watson (Founder & CEO, OpenForests) sits down with Alejandro Diaz, Landscape Finance Manager at Commoland, to discuss how to unlock substantial fundings for large scale landscape restoration and scape from a project view to a more holistic approach and we'll dive into their 4Returns Funding Approach.

In this episode, Alexander Watson (Founder & CEO, OpenForests) sits down with Michael Rumberg, Managing Director at Volkswagen ClimatePartner, to answer a critical question: What makes a forest carbon project truly high-quality? You’ll discover: 🌳 What defines real impact — from increasing carbon stocks and biodiversity to earning community trust 🚩 How to spot red flags and manage project risks 🤝 Why long-term success depends on transparency, co-development, and aligning diverse stakeholder interests ⚖️ How to balance carbon goals with social outcomes 📈 Insights into the future of biodiversity, MRV, and carbon markets Dive into the evolving carbon markets, the challenges of biodiversity measurement, and Michael's personal drive to channel private finance into nature-based solutions. A must-listen for anyone keen on ecosystem restoration, impact investing, and the future of carbon credits! Hit subscribe, join the conversation, and let's grow a movement beyond the canopy. #ForestCarbon #NatureBasedSolutions #ImpactInvesting #EcosystemRestoration #ClimateAction #CarbonOffsets #SustainableForestry #ESGInvestment #Biodiversité #Podcast #BeyondtheCanopy