Our Approach
Fostering Healthy Relationships Between Communities and the Land
At Eden: People+Planet, we implement comprehensive landscape restoration that creates thriving environments where communities and ecosystems flourish together. Our approach addresses the root causes of environmental degradation through community partnership, creating landscapes where people and planet are connected through mutual care and responsibility. We believe that when communities thrive in healthy and restored environments, we all benefit for generations to come.
Landscape Restoration
Eden implements a standards-based landscape restoration approach that integrates multiple strategies to rebuild ecosystem function across large areas. This comprehensive methodology goes far beyond simply planting trees to address the complex factors driving landscape degradation.
Our landscape approach recognizes that:
- Ecosystems function through interconnected relationships between plants, animals, water, soil, and people
- Restoration must address multiple ecological functions simultaneously
- Communities are integral parts of landscapes, not separate from them
- Long-term success requires addressing both environmental and social factors
Through careful assessment of each landscape’s unique characteristics, we implement restoration strategies that create resilient ecosystems and thriving communities.
Depending on the specific ecosystem and community needs, our restoration strategies may include:
Indigenous tree planting in appropriate areas
Applied nucleation to accelerate forest recovery
Assisted natural regeneration
Agroforestry systems that combine trees with crops
Fire prevention and management systems
Watershed protection and restoration
By tailoring our approach to each landscape’s specific conditions, we ensure that restoration activities address the most critical ecological needs while supporting community well-being.
Community Partnerships
At the foundation of our work is the understanding that communities must lead restoration efforts for lasting success. Rather than imposing external solutions, we co-design projects with local communities based on their knowledge, priorities, and vision for the future.
This partnership approach includes:
- Creating multi-stakeholder platforms where diverse voices can shape restoration plans
- Building on traditional ecological knowledge alongside modern scientific understanding
- Developing local capacity for long-term landscape management
- Ensuring equitable benefit-sharing from restoration activities
By centering community leadership, we create restoration initiatives that address local priorities while building toward global environmental goals. This approach ensures that communities have both the motivation and capacity to maintain restored landscapes for generations.
Our implementation teams are primarily composed of local community members, creating meaningful employment while building local expertise in restoration techniques. This approach builds long-term capacity that remains within communities well beyond the initial project phase.
Long-Term Commitment
True restoration takes time. Unlike short-term interventions, our approach involves a minimum 15+ year commitment to each landscape. For carbon projects, this extends to 40+ years to ensure permanence of climate benefits.
This long-term perspective allows:
- Natural systems to progress through succession stages toward maturity
- Communities to develop new relationships with their landscapes
- Governance systems to evolve and strengthen
- Economic models to transition toward sustainability
Our extended timeframe acknowledges that genuine sustainability requires patience. Quick fixes and short-term projects rarely create lasting change. By staying engaged for decades rather than years, we support both immediate needs and long-term transformation.
Identify + Assess
We prioritize landscape-scale restoration opportunities that change the trajectory for climate, community, and biodiversity at the local and global scale.
Vision + Design
We co-develop restoration objectives, goals, and intended impact with communities, governments, and other stakeholders based on a shared understanding of the landscape.
Implement + Innovate
We implement restoration initiatives based on globally recognized standards, responding to each landscape’s unique challenges and opportunities.
Monitor + Adapt
We use industry-respected methodologies to monitor quality, create transparency, and showcase impact through adaptive management.
Sustain + Support
We secure long-term financing for restoration projects to support burgeoning systems of local governance, maintain regenerating landscapes, and achieve restoration outcomes.
Throughout these phases, we maintain flexibility to adapt our approaches as conditions change and new knowledge emerges.
Standards & Science
Our work is grounded in scientific understanding of ecosystem function and evidence-based restoration practices. We apply globally recognized standards while adapting implementation to local contexts.
Key elements of our technical approach include:
- Baseline assessments that document current ecological and social conditions
- Reference ecosystems that guide restoration targets and techniques
- Monitoring systems that track progress and support adaptive management
- Transparent reporting that documents outcomes and lessons learned
We emphasize continuous learning and adaptation, recognizing that restoration is a developing field requiring ongoing refinement of methods. Our technical team stays current with the latest research and collaborates with scientific partners to advance restoration science.
For carbon projects, we follow rigorous methodologies verified by third-party standards to ensure the integrity of climate benefits. Our verification processes maintain the highest levels of accuracy and transparency.
Four Returns Framework
Our landscape restoration work follows the globally recognized 4 Returns Framework, which ensures holistic outcomes across multiple dimensions. This framework guides our implementation efforts and partnerships, creating lasting impact in each landscape.
The 4 Returns approach focuses on generating four types of returns:
Return of Inspiration
Restoring hope, purpose, and connection between communities and their land
Return of Social Capital
Building relationships, strengthening communities, and creating jobs
Return of Natural Capital
Enhancing biodiversity, improving ecosystem services, and sequestering carbon
Return of Financial Capital
Developing sustainable economic activities for long-term prosperity
Through this framework, we ensure that our restoration efforts create multiple forms of value across generations. This comprehensive approach addresses both immediate needs and long-term sustainability, creating lasting change that continues long after our initial interventions.
Join Our Community of Restoration Supporters
By becoming a monthly supporter, you help ensure our landscape restoration work continues for generations to come. Your recurring gift provides the sustained funding needed for long-term ecological and community transformation.