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05_Reforestation Vs Rewilding_Blog_Header_01

At Ecologi we believe that restoring natural ecosystems is really important, and is one of the best things that we can do to help tackle the climate crisis. Restoring forests can help reverse biodiversity’s decline, tackle climate change and also improve our <a href="https://www.forestryengland.uk/wellbeing">health and wellbeing</a>.  There are many different ways in which forest ecosystems restoration can be done. Two examples are reforestation and rewilding. 
Often the terms reforestation and rewilding are used interchangeably, however there are some key differences between the two.

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Definition
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Reforestation is the planting of trees in areas where there has historically been tree cover and have been cleared.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Rewilding is the restoration of ecosystems (wetlands, peatlands, forests etc) to the point where nature is allowed to take care of itself after initial human support.</li>
</ul>

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Ecosystems
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Reforestation focuses on trees. These trees then grow and provide wildlife habitats, clean air and shade.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Rewilding works across the whole ecosystem level, restoring natural function in all trophic levels. It can involve the reintroduction of species such as beavers or wolves.</li>
</ul>

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Reforestation Vs Rewilding_Blog_Banner_METHOD

Method
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Reforestation involves the manual planting of trees by humans.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Rewilding minimises, gradually reduces human intervention or leaves an area alone for natural regeneration where possible e.g. seed dispersal leading to regeneration of trees. </li>
</ul>

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Location
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Reforestation can happen anywhere where there has historically been a forest.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Rewilding can occur in all types of land (and sea-) scapes, at all scales. It works best on slightly degraded sites, or those close to existing forests that can serve as sources of seed.</li>
</ul>

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Reforestation Vs Rewilding_Blog_Banner_SPECIES MIX

Species mix
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Reforestation chooses which species to plant. It should be done using a mixture of native species, including rare and endangered ones where possible.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Rewilding can be difficult to predict in advance, in terms of the exact trajectory of revegetation (i.e. species mix, location and density), but the main focus is on native species.</li>
</ul>

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Reforestation Vs Rewilding_Blog_Banner_COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

Community involvement
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Reforestation can work alongside initiatives to boost local economies – e.g. agroforestry, sustainable generation of wood products, or ecotourism. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Rewilding involves leaving nature to its own devices, even if initial human support is required.</li>
</ul>

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Reforestation Vs Rewilding_Blog_Banner_BIODIVERSITY IMPACT

Biodiversity impact
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Reforestation can benefit biodiversity to a greater extent if native, diverse tree species are planted (responsible reforestation), rather than monocultures of cultivated trees.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Rewilding always works to restore the native biodiversity of the area.</li>
</ul>

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Reforestation Vs Rewilding_Blog_Banner_CLIMATE IMPACT

Climate impact
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Reforestation creates planted forests which take in CO2 from the atmosphere if sufficient protection measures are put in place.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Rewilding creates restored ecosystems which take in CO2 from the atmosphere if sufficient protection measures are put in place.</li>
</ul>

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<h2>Reforestation </h2>
Reforestation is a key tool in helping to tackle the climate crisis, particularly the reforestation of tropical forests. Tropical forests have suffered extensive destruction, fragmentation, degradation and depletion of biodiversity. Once covering <a href="https://drawdown.org/solutions/tropical-forest-restoration">12% of the world’s landmass, they now cover just 5%.</a> Reforestation works to restore previous forest cover, by cultivating and planting seedlings. 
In order to have benefits, both for biodiversity and for carbon sequestration, this reforestation needs to be done responsibly. Forest researchers recently found that within the <a href="https://www.bonnchallenge.org/">Bonn Challenge</a>, a global goal to restore 350 million hectares of degraded ecosystems by 2030,<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01026-8?utm_medium=affiliate&amp;utm_source=commission_junction&amp;utm_campaign=3_nsn6445_deeplink_PID100062364&amp;utm_content=deeplink"> 45% of forest restoration commitments </a>involved monoculture plantations of fast growing trees. These are usually intended for harvest, and are ecologically poor and store little carbon. Reforestation needs to be done with a native and diverse mix of species in order to boost long-term carbon sequestration, the biodiversity of the area, and efficient protection measures must be put in place to ensure that the forest persists for long periods of time, instead of being cut down to produce timber. 
At Ecologi, our key tree-planting sites are tree-planting projects in Madagascar, Mozambique, Kenya and Nicaragua. The trees planted are a wide mixture of native species, and our main tree-planting partners <a href="https://edenprojects.org/">Eden Reforestation</a> work carefully with all levels of government to protect the forests. They also employ forest guards to monitor the area, and engage the local community with the forest by employing local villagers to plant and care for the trees. You can read more about our tree planting projects <a href="https://x.ecologi.com/projects">here. </a>
The UK has recently made commitments to increase its forest cover, pledging to plant 30,000 new hectares of trees each year as part of the<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-outlines-his-ten-point-plan-for-a-green-industrial-revolution-for-250000-jobs"> 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution</a> published in December 2020. Increasing tree cover is especially important in Britain, of which only <a href="https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/support-rewilding/our-campaigns-and-issues/natural-regeneration">13%</a> has tree cover. This is compared to<a href="https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/support-rewilding/our-campaigns-and-issues/natural-regeneration"> 40% for the EU and 46% of Europe</a> as a whole. So we need more trees and woodlands, but we must ensure these are planted in a responsible way. This is why we also now have two UK specific tree-planting projects, planting trees in Scotland, and in the South-West of England. You can read more about our UK reforestation projects <a href="https://x.ecologi.com/projects/reforestation-projects-in-the-uk">here</a>.

<h2>Rewilding </h2>
Rewilding involves leaving nature alone as much as possible to recover by itself and minimising human intervention. It is defined as the restoration of ecosystems to the point in which nature is allowed to take care of itself, and seeks to reinstate natural processes, and where possible missing species, allowing them to influence the ecosystems and shape the habitats within them. Although native species are the main focus, rewilding is not designed to reach a specific end point or final ecosystem, but goes wherever nature takes it. 
All degraded ecosystems can be rewilded and rewilding can involve interactions at all levels. <a href="https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/">Rewilding Britain</a> calculates that restoring native woodland, peat bogs, heaths and species-rich grasslands over a total of six million hectares could sequester <a href="https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/blog/new-report-how-restoring-nature-can-help-decarbonise-the-uk">47 million tonnes of CO2 per year</a>. This is more than 1/10th of the UK’s territorial greenhouse gas emissions. 
Rewilding can often involve the reintroduction of a species into an area. A classic example of rewilding is the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/25/yellowstone-wolf-project-25th-anniversary">reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park in the US.</a> When westerners first arrived at this park in the 1920s, they very quickly hunted wolves to extinction. In the 1990s wolves started to be reintroduced into Yellowstone in order to control the elk populations. The elk and deer populations started responding immediately. Within about 10 years, willows rebounded. Within 20 years, the aspen began flourishing. Riverbanks stabilized and songbirds returned, as did beavers, eagles, foxes and badgers. They have restored the natural function of the ecosystem and biodiversity has flourished. 25 years later, this is heralded as one of the world’s most successful rewilding stories. 
In the case of forest ecosystems, rewilding typically involves releasing land from non-forest use, such as growing crops or damming a valley, and letting a young forest rise up on its own. As the forest ecosystem recovers, trees, soil, leaf litter and other vegetation absorb and hold carbon. As functions are restored, the forest regains its multifunctional role, supporting the water cycle, conserving soil, protecting habitat and pollinators and providing food, medicine and fibres. 
An example of where elements of rewilding have been incorporated into our tree-planting projects is the woolly pigs that are used to help restore ecosystem functions to our forest sites in <a href="https://x.ecologi.com/projects/reforesting-dalry-scotland">Dalry, Scotland</a>. These pigs churn up the soil, allowing the seed bank to come to the surface and improving the species diversity of the forests. The pigs also trample and clear bracken, creating space for new life to push through it.

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<h2>Both are needed… </h2>
&nbsp;
<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01026-8?utm_medium=affiliate&amp;utm_source=commission_junction&amp;utm_campaign=3_nsn6445_deeplink_PID100062364&amp;utm_content=deeplink">Some scientists</a> argue that rewilding should be the default approach, and that we shouldn’t be planting trees at all, but instead let woodlands grow back without external intervention through the process of natural regeneration. However whilst rewilding is extremely important and provides many benefits to the natural areas, there are places where rewilding simply isn’t likely to occur; such as in land far away from seed sources, or in urban parks. 
Additionally there are large areas where natural regeneration would take a long time, even many decades, due to limited access to seed sources. We know that as we face both the climate and biodiversity crisis, time is of the essence. We therefore need both reforestation and rewilding in order to help protect the climate and to help biodiversity thrive.
<a href="https://x.ecologi.com/business/overview">Sign up</a> to Ecologi today to start taking real climate action.
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UK Voluntary Carbon Market Guide: Best Practices for Climate Action

The voluntary carbon market plays an important role in corporate climate strategies – but its effectiveness relies on buyers doing due diligence and rigorous quality assessment on each project, as well as placing the purchase of credits in the right place in the climate journey.
To ensure meaningful climate impact, businesses must develop a comprehensive carbon strategy and find ways to fund only high-quality credits in the voluntary carbon market – and this guide shows you how to do so with Ecologi.

<h2>Table of contents</h2>
<ul>
<li>When to buy carbon credits</li>
<li>Our new carbon projects assessment framework</li>
<li>Ecologi&#8217;s core due diligence principles</li>
<li>How Ecologi scores and ranks carbon credit projects</li>
<li>Questions to ask your carbon credit supplier</li>
<li>Take action in the voluntary carbon market</li>
</ul>

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<h2>When should businesses buy carbon credits in the voluntary market?</h2>
Businesses must not use credits in place of making direct, measurable reductions in their emissions. Instead, follow these steps to ensure you buy your carbon credits on the right step of your corporate climate action journey, and in the right way:
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Measure your emissions first – to allow you to understand where your business’s emissions are coming from. 
</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Set science-based targets and work towards them – set ambitious targets aligned with the SBTi and compatible with the global 1.5ºC warming target.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Beyond value chain mitigation (BVCM) – design your BVCM portfolio to work alongside your decarbonisation plan and address your unabated emissions in each reporting year. Align it with SBTi guidance and the Oxford Principles. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Buy high-quality carbon credits – use this guide to ensure the carbon credits you buy meet rigorous quality standards. Remember, under the SBTi framework you’ll also need permanent carbon removal credits for neutralising your residual emissions when you reach your net-zero date.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Disclose and report transparently – publicly disclose information about your carbon credit purchases, and clearly communicate the limited role of carbon credits in your broader sustainability strategy.</li>
</ol>

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<h2>Ecologi&#8217;s carbon project assessment framework</h2>
In April 2025, we published a report summarising how we assess carbon credit projects against our rigorous proprietary rubric. A snapshot of what goes into our carbon credit project assessment is below, or you <a href="https://cms-assets.offset.earth/app/uploads/20250428124112/Ecologi_Whitepaper_A4.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">download the full whitepaper here</a>.

<h2>Carbon project due diligence: Ecologi’s core principles</h2>
At Ecologi, we maintain general due diligence principles which we apply universally across the voluntary carbon market, to support our efforts to supply only high-quality carbon credits.
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">ICROA-endorsed standards only – we supply credits exclusively from carbon standards which are ICROA-endorsed.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Responsive to ICVCM decisions – we support the ICVCM’s two-tick approach to providing CCP-Approval to project methodologies, and we go further still, to assess individual projects on their merits and limitations as well.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Keep the carbon credit life cycle as short as possible – 75% of our credits in 2024 came directly from project developers and their nominated dispensaries (as opposed to intermediaries on the secondary market), maximising the proportion of purchase price which goes to the developer.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Locally-appropriate projects only – we take care to ensure that supported projects are being applied in appropriate geographies, where they can have the greatest impact.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Deep project-level scrutiny – our extensive assessment criteria are specific to each type of project, and we assess every project against these criteria, ensuring the project’s specifics have been taken into account.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Methodological consensus – we synthesise data we receive from our partners Sylvera, BeZero Carbon, Calyx Global and Renoster) with our own in-house analysis to uncover where there is consensus about project quality, and improve confidence.</li>
</ul>

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<h2>How to evaluate carbon credits: Ecologi&#8217;s scoring methodology</h2>
We designed a three-layer assessment process which takes into account the merits and limitations of the carbon standard used, the carbon credit methodology used, and of the individual project design.
The tables below summarise some of the data inputs we use at each stage.

<h3>Assessment level: Carbon Standard</h3>
Examples: Gold Standard, Verra, Puro Earth, Isometric, Plan Vivo.

<h3>Assessment level: Methodology (or ‘Protocol’)</h3>
Examples: GS TPDDTEC, VM0048, ACM0002.

<h3>Assessment level: Project</h3>
Examples: GS 10790, VCS 1571.

Criteria in the assessment are categorised as either quality criteria or risk criteria, and are segmented by our three pillars of impact: Climate, Nature and People. Based on how it meets each criterion, the project gains points for quality criteria, and loses points for excess risk – ultimately giving a risk-adjusted value out of 100 for each of these pillars.
Having gathered our risk-adjusted pillar scores, we use our own unique scoring formula which weights the risk-adjusted Climate score of the project equally with the combined risk-adjusted Nature and People scores. The formula then produces an ‘overall’ score (also out of 100) for the project. In order to be supplied by Ecologi, projects must meet a minimum overall score of 80, and must achieve no lower than 65 in any given risk-adjusted pillar score.

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<h2>Key questions to ask carbon credit suppliers</h2>
Selecting the right carbon credit provider is important to help guide you to make informed choices as part of your corporate sustainability strategy. Before purchasing carbon credits, businesses should ask:
<h3>Project quality </h3>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you assess/validate/underwrite project quality? If so, how?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do your projects get good ratings from the ratings agencies? If so, what ratings are they?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you source credits directly from project developers, or from the secondary market?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you monitor projects over time to ensure continued success, and how do you remedy it, if a project&#8217;s quality drops?</li>
</ul>
<h3>Due diligence</h3>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you ensure you are supporting the right projects in the right locations?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you account for project permanence and mitigate risks?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What makes your projects additional?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you assess the project&#8217;s impacts on climate, nature and people?</li>
</ul>
<h3>Positioning</h3>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you contribute to the development of a high integrity voluntary carbon market?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you align your portfolios with the Oxford Principles? If so, how?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you reflect ICVCM guidance on carbon credit methodologies and technologies?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you build multi-year portfolios that align to mid- &amp; long-term SBTs?</li>
</ul>
As the voluntary carbon market evolves, corporate buyers have the power and the responsibility to demand high-impact credits to drive real climate progress. This means buyers have a responsibility to do due diligence before placing an order for carbon credits.

<h2>Take action in the voluntary carbon market</h2>
As a business committed to corporate climate action, understanding the voluntary carbon market is essential for making informed decisions about carbon credits. Our comprehensive whitepaper provides deeper insights into creating an effective sustainability strategy.
<a href="https://cms-assets.offset.earth/app/uploads/20250428124112/Ecologi_Whitepaper_A4.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Download our full whitepaper</a> to learn how your business can navigate the voluntary carbon market with confidence.

<h2>Connect with one of our climate experts</h2>
Please complete our form to arrange a 30-minute discovery call to discuss your goals and get a tailored solution for your business.

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