Restoring global forests

Football for Forests aims to train as many young people as possible to be ‘Zagueros del bosque’ (guardians of the forest) for their home forests and to lead football schools in their own communities. In 2022, 20 guardians of the forest were trained already.

“Football for Forests offers an innovative opportunity to finance forest restoration activities in Colombia – football pitch by football pitch, so to speak,” says Juan Pablo Castro, director of GANSO. This non - profit organisation offers technical and financial support to land owners wishing to transition to sustainable land use practices in Colombia. Many of these include cattle ranchers residing at the forest frontier.

We had the pleasure of talking with Sports for Social Impact in today's podcast. In our discussion, we explored the possibility of financing nature-based solutions and reforestation through sport. Sports for Social Impact seeks to explore and educate on the power that sport has to create a positive impact on society.

"Football has rarely made positive headlines in recent weeks. The World Cup in Qatar was overshadowed by discussions about human rights violations. But football moves people." [In German] Frank Mertens talked to Charlotte Streck, one of the co-founders of Climate Focus, about Football For Forests for @electrifiedmagazin.

The 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference – more commonly referred to as COP27 – was held from 6 November until 18 November 2022 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Our team was represented there by a number of colleagues, where we connected with likeminded initiatives, government programmes, and private sector actors on F4F’s missions and activities. It was fantastic to represent F4F at this important event.

With generous support from the German government (GIZ), we have been busy preparing the first two restoration sites in Colombia. The first site concerns a 35-football pitch-sized farm in the Amazon region, while the second project covers a 20 pitch-sized farm in the Orinoquia region. As we release the first fully functional app this November, we hope to be able to start restoring these sites as the goals of your favourite teams start flying in!

We are extremely happy to let you know that we have received support from the Algorand Foundation to continue the scaling of F4F’s activities. Algorand is a low - carbon blockchain enterprise that empowers solutions based on the Algorand blockchain, and supports a wide range of start - up ventures through its Foundation. With this support, F4F is able to complete the development of the second version of pur app, and scale forest restoration efforts on the ground in Colombia.