Tree-Nation is a non-profit organization that works to reforest forests all over the world. We are a multicultural team based in both Brussels and Barcelona. I founded Tree-Nation in 2006 and it has been quite a long journey as the interest in sustainability has evolved a lot since then. What we do is help citizens and companies participate in reforestation and to guide them in the sustainability mindset.

The fact that we are losing trees every year makes deforestation one of the worst environmental offenders right now. Various scientific studies show that planting trees is the cheapest and most effective way to combat climate change. In addition, planting trees has other benefits such as purifying water, combating malnutrition, preventing flooding and protecting habitats for hundreds of species.

Can you tell us about some of the projects where Skinome's customers can plant trees and provide an insight into these specific projects?

Skinome plants trees in various projects around the world, for example in Madagascar, Tanzania and other tropical areas. These areas are particularly important because they are where trees grow the fastest and therefore capture carbon dioxide at the fastest rate. They are also where we have the most deforestation and the most animal species.

Furthermore, tropical regions are some of the poorest in the world, which means that local people do not have the opportunity to solve the problem themselves.

Some people criticize tree planting projects and say that they lack diversity in the trees they plant. How do you view this and what do you do to prevent this?

I understand what you mean, we have read quite a few articles on this subject ourselves. These articles refer to a classic type of tree plantation for wood/cellulose projects and that is not the type we deal with at Tree-Nation. Basically, you can have a plantation that is intended to produce only one type of tree, with the aim of harvesting the trees when they are mature. But that is not what we do. What we do is replant. It is like anything in life, food can be healthy or unhealthy depending on the type of food it is. The problem is that the journalists who write the articles do not differentiate between different tree planting projects for the sake of digging up scandals in a hot topic.