Locations
Campaign: Uruguay
Plantatón Uruguay
The first crowdfunding initiative to restore the native forest in Uruguay was successfully completed. To contribute to the recovery of the Punta del Diablo Public Park, an area affected by fires in January 2021, Plantatón Uruguay successfully closed its crowdfunding campaign that allowed 1,111 native trees to be planted and cared for.
UNDP Uruguay’s Accelerator Lab and Plantatón Uruguay launched an initiative to encourage individual commitment and collective financing through crowdfunding to restore Punta del Diablo’s native forest. The goal was to plant 1,000 native trees.
The local community together with UNDP’s team, plants Pitanga (Eugenia uniflora), a native species.
Uruguay was inspired by experiences from other countries such as El Salvador, where the Plantatón initiative helped plant 35 million trees between 2017 and 2018, Uzbekistan, which is bringing life back to the Aral Sea, and Costa Rica’s Huella de Futuro, which is planting 200,000 trees in the country’s North Zone.
The campaign, active from July 21 to August 31, 2021, on the plantatonuruguay.org site, raised $16,674 thanks to contributions from 152 people from 14 countries and 5 companies, exceeding the initial goal of acquiring 1,000 trees.
It was the first crowdfunding initiative of this type — linked to the restoration of the native forest and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in Uruguay. In Uruguay, native trees such as the Arrayàn, Chal Chal and Curupì are increasingly threatened by alien species, unplanned urban development, and unsustainable tourism. Today only 4.8 per cent of Uruguay’s land is covered by native forests. Native forests are home to most reptiles and many native birds, amphibians and mammals, including threatened species. They are essential to protect biodiversity, the environment, and water quality.
Uruguay: Lush forests as lungs of the country
A few months after starting the campaign, 1,111 trees of more than 20 different native species were planted. They came from local nurseries, many of which were created with the support of the GEF Small Grants Programme. The care and monitoring of the trees will be carried out together with different local organizations that have joined this initiative.
On September 26 and 27, Plantatón Uruguay planted the trees collected through the crowdfunding campaign. Check out how in two intensive days, native trees were planted: