Most organizations implementing agroforestry within the cocoa supply chain report success based on trees distributed, hectares planted and farmers covered. However, there are many factors (timing of delivery, drought, seedling quality, farmers’ willingness to plant, etc.) that potentially hampers survival of trees once distributed. There are many instances where farmers do not even plant trees received and dump them under a tree on their farms (if the trees are lucky to get there) or at their backyards. In the instances where they plant, there is no follow up to check on the condition, success or survival of the planted trees over time.

With the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) now enabling all partners to account for or report  Forest, Land and Agriculture (FLAG) emission reductions, it has become clear that knowing and reporting on actual trees that survive over a period of time is necessary for carbon credit awards. Implementers will now have to report on actual trees survived and not just trees distributed.

GaiaCare has data collection tools which can be adapted to client needs for tree survival monitoring. We have a cost-effective and efficient methodology that enables us to conduct full-scale monitoring for all interested parties for projects spanning years. We are currently developing a tool that will enable us to enhance the services we provide in this area and use existing data; thereby limiting the data needs, time and resources for monitoring. With this, only missing data has to be collected. Data collected can be used for other purposes such as tree registration (insert tree registration hyperlink so it can send readers back to that page) as well.