The Global Forestation Network: Orchestrating the Financing and Development of Tree Planting Programs

ABSTRACT This study introduces the ‘global forestation network’ (GFN)—an arrangement of actors that shape afforestation, reforestation, and forest restoration activities worldwide. These activities typically involve planting trees, and are motivated by supporting biodiversity, local communities, and climate change mitigation. At the GFN's core sit the ‘orchestrators’—the world's largest non‐governmental tree planting organisations—that collectively influence how forestation is financed and implemented. Here, interviews with 23 actors reveal how orchestrators attempt to strategically and sustainably connect financiers and local planting organisations—developing portfolios of geographically and ecologically diverse projects. Yet, interviewees perceived mismatches between the funding sizes and project sizes available: while smaller and larger funds are often accessible, there exists a ‘missing middle’ ranging from USD 0.1–1 million that is difficult to source but what many planting organisations require. Orchestrators use an array of strategies to abate this challenge whilst balancing preferences of other actors within the GFN.