East African Farmers Plant 28.3M Trees via Cool Effect
Get the Energy newsletter
Daily energy & climate — solar, EVs, oil, the policy fights and tech bets shaping the transition. Free.
- Cool Effect's Giving Trees project has enabled more than 265,000 smallholder farmers in East Africa to plant over 28.3 million trees on their own land through the TIST program, with farmers choosing species and growing seedlings locally.
- The TIST program distributes 70% of carbon credit profits directly to participating farmers, tying climate remediation revenue to rural livelihoods rather than external operators.
- GPS-based monitoring tracks each surviving tree for at least 30 years and publishes progress transparently online, providing verified data on carbon removal.
- Not all seedlings survive — drought and grazing take a toll — but farmers mitigate this by planting multiple trees and actively managing them.
- The project delivers layered benefits beyond carbon: soil restoration, erosion reduction, fruit/timber/fuelwood yields, income, and women's economic participation in nutrition and clean cooking.
- Scaling is community-driven rather than centrally planned, with growth spreading through word of mouth as neighboring farmers observe improved yields and revenue.
Why it matters: More than 265,000 smallholder farmers are now active participants in a monitored, 30-year carbon removal pipeline, with 70% of credit revenue flowing back to them — a model that links verified nature-based carbon offsets directly to rural income, soil restoration, and resilience against drought in East Africa.
