Sol Nascente Trees and People Community - Portugal
Description
Sol Nascente is a regenerative initiative that longs to reforest the north of Portugal and Spain by proving that a forest can be ecologically sound as well as wildly productive.
Our mission is to take degraded lands and to transform them into flourishing forest communities. To acquire lands weakened by generations of neglect, manage them with regenerative agroforestry to build soil and resist wildfire. And in the same space, nest several forest productions which we then process into goods with a high added value. Simultaneously yielding natural beauty, carbon credits, conservation of biodiversity, ecosystem services, and the very forest models which tie them together.
Through diversified yields, we catalyze a new trend in which people don’t simply return to rural life, but embark on a new form of country living where healthy forests are synonymous with a healthy rural economy. We demonstrate a clear alternative forestry, capable of reinvigorating local communities and incentivizing a lifestyle in which people manage and protect forests. In the end, the only thing capable of preventing wildfire is human action. It’s community participation which can directly reverse the underlying cause of wildfire: systemic abandonment of the countryside.
In our region, where a single hectare might have a dozen different owners, reforestation initiatives are limited by the number of people they can work with. So, we offer our models for free as open-source for others to replicate. Our goal isn't merely to reforest the region ourselves, but to teach and inspire others to regenerate the land while turning a profit. To see our small-scale forest models widely adopted, creating a network of true bottom-up large-scale reforestation that reinvigorates the bioregion.
Source: https://solnascente.eu/short_description/short_description.en.pdf