It's Not About Being Perfect. It's About Stopping the Desert.

Part of the AfricaLive Funding the Future series

Marie-Noelle Keijzer is CEO and co-founder of WeForest, a forest restoration organisation working across 85,000 hectares in Ethiopia, Zambia, and Malawi.

Visiting COP Was a Frustrating Experience

After 20 years working for French and American corporations in France and Belgium, I returned to university to study environmental science whilst working full-time. I had an MBA from two decades earlier; now I wanted the credibility to work on climate. My son was 11. I wanted to leave a legacy beyond making money.

When I graduated, someone introduced me to the man who would become my co-founder. He was pitching a vision that was relatively new in 2009: that forests are the solution to most of our problems. He wanted someone to run it. Everything in my life had prepared me for that role.

We attended the Copenhagen COP together. Behind the scenes, we could see what was happening. Political leaders were there for visibility, not substance. Keijzer explains, "I remember meeting Gordon Brown. He couldn't care less. I was telling him about the opportunity with trees for climate, and obviously these people are there for political reasons, to be visible."

The realisation was clear: change wouldn't come from COPs. She knew corporates from her previous career. That became her network. The first funding came from South African Paper and Pulp (SAPPI), headquartered in Brussels. They gave 35,000 euros. WeForest began funding trees in Brazil, then developed its own projects.

Keijzer reflects, "What I brought was an understanding of how to communicate with corporates. You need to speak their language. You can pitch forest restoration to different causes—poverty reduction, women's empowerment, soil health, climate, water." Historically, corporate funding has been WeForest's primary source, accounting for 85% of income. Corporates are both willing and able to fund conservation work voluntarily, either through confidential donations or through sponsorships where they receive public recognition.

The challenge is that corporate funding is not always predictable. Companies rarely sign long-term commitments, even when they end up supporting projects for over a decade. December used to be enormous because companies had money left in budgets. It works for running existing projects but not for starting new ones, since corporates want to see tangible results rather than concepts.

Economic Wellbeing Reduces Pressure on Forests

WeForest developed its approach based on three pillars that work together. The first is forestry—the actual planting and protection of trees. But this cannot succeed without the second pillar: livelihoods. Keijzer states directly, "If people next to the forest are starving or have no energy, they will cut the trees. Economic wellbeing reduces pressure on forests."

The third pillar is governance. If the forest is not supported by policy, if land rights are unclear, if nobody enforces laws, restoration fails. This includes everything from property rights verification to ensuring governmental support.

Each project adapts to local conditions. In Zambia, deforestation levels are very high. In Ethiopia, people in Tigray actually protect forests and the main challenge is drought, so WeForest works on collecting water, hydrating soils, and creating infrastructure for infiltration. In Malawi, extreme population pressure creates different dynamics entirely.

Projects are run by local teams who live in the communities and almost become part of them. During the two-year war in Tigray, WeForest was the only NGO that remained because team members live in Mekelle. When planting trees became impossible due to closed banks, markets, and roads, they brought in lorryloads of wheat and barley so that each of 23,000 families received 50 kilograms of each crop to plant and eat.

That embeddedness is fundamental. In Zambia alone, WeForest employs 55 people. Keijzer emphasises, "Getting communities to change behaviour is fundamental. Otherwise, you plant trees for nothing because as soon as they grow, goats eat them or people harvest them for charcoal." In one project covering 30,000 hectares, the organisation employs 72 forest guards to patrol and enforce laws.

Funders want to see forest growth but often resist paying for the governance and enforcement that protects that growth. Keijzer notes wryly, "That cost is not very sexy on results, but it is fundamental to keep the results."

SBTI Combined With Negative Reporting Created Funding Challenges

Things have evolved considerably since WeForest began. Keijzer explains, "Since the beginning of SBTI, we've seen a change in corporates. SBTI came with the intention of structuring and organising corporate contribution to climate. Well, actually it had a negative effect on organisations like ours combined with negative reporting like the Guardian article, which didn't reflect our reality."

Those two combined, corporates said: "Oh, no. We're not going to do anything. We're going to wait and see." That was catastrophic. The ones that had digested SBTI were saying they would follow SBTI, become net zero, and decarbonise their supply chain. They were going from donations and sponsorship to not doing anything until they would be net zero, then potentially buying carbon credits, which is very different from what WeForest was offering.

A lot of people were afraid of communicating on the projects they support, afraid of being accused of greenwashing. Keijzer states firmly, "I always say greenwashing is not what you do, it's what you pretend you do."

Carbon is taking a lot of space now. WeForest has one project that is being carbon certified. But carbon certifying a project is very difficult because not every situation is suitable for that. It is very costly, complex, and so it's not accessible for most implementers. Yet everybody wants carbon because they feel that's the ultimate security of impact, which actually it isn't.

That is very detrimental to grassroots movements to restore Africa because it's so technical. You can't even find the resources to help you carbon certify because they're super rare, super expensive. You keep them one year and then they're gone because they go for better pay somewhere else. There's competition for skills and for land.

Who's Going to Reforest Burkina Faso and Mali If Not Locals?

The current model requires every organisation to do everything. A small NGO attempting forest restoration in Mali needs expertise in forestry, but also in fundraising, marketing, accounting, carbon certification, monitoring and evaluation, community engagement, governance, and scientific research. Each area requires specialists. Each specialist costs money. Each function takes time to develop.

Small organisations struggle to access funding because they lack complete teams, so they attempt to build complete teams to access funding, which diverts resources from what they actually do well—restoration on the ground. Keijzer observes, "They do that because they need to access funding and they think they're going to develop those skills. I understand why, but it wastes resources where that could be done differently."

The waste is particularly acute with carbon certification. It costs hundreds of thousands just to certify a project, then more to verify during 40 years of monitoring. The technical expertise required is scarce and expensive. Not every situation is even suitable for certification.

Meanwhile, when you look at foundation websites, many state: "We do not accept unsolicited requests." Keijzer understands why—foundations receive overwhelming numbers of applications. But the consequence is that funding concentrates in the same five or six large NGOs that already have relationships and track records.

She asks pointedly, "That means it's always the same organisations receiving funding. The big, the strong. It's great, but we need diversity. We need grassroots organisations in places that nobody would go to. Honestly, who's going to go to Burkina Faso and Mali to do any projects? Nobody today. You need local people to do it. How do they do that if you don't help them?"

Local organisations have crucial advantages. They live in the communities where they work. They understand local culture and governance. They can operate in conflict zones where international NGOs cannot. Yet these are precisely the organisations that struggle most to access funding.

Everything We've Developed Is Open-Source. Let's Share Knowledge and Collaborate More.

Here's what Keijzer envisions: stop asking every organisation to do everything. Instead, grassroots organisations specialise in what they do best—high-quality restoration delivery on the ground—whilst established NGOs provide the infrastructure they need.

The ideal model would be small grassroots organisations that focus on restoration with coaching from organisations like WeForest who know how to do the rest and get the funding in. This would work through training and ongoing support. WeForest has projects in Senegal. With proper funding, they could host trainees from NGOs in Mali and Burkina Faso—places where security concerns prevent most international organisations from operating. These trainees would spend six months or a year learning the methods, then return home to implement with continued support.

Rather than WeForest trying to expand its own footprint, this would multiply capacity across dozens or hundreds of organisations. Rather than each small NGO wasting resources building fundraising and certification departments, those functions would be centralised with organisations that already have the expertise and relationships.

Keijzer explains, "We could have central organisations vetting projects and distributing funding at large scale, doing it based on rigour and monitoring, incentivising quality. There's room for this systematic approach to scaling."

Everything WeForest has developed is open-source. They're a non-profit. Whatever methods they've created should be copied. The problem is they don't have the bandwidth to disseminate actively because they're busy funding and delivering their own projects. If larger coordination organisations helped them package and share their knowledge, it could establish standards that grassroots implementers could adopt.

Philanthropy, Then Corporates, Then Carbon Credits

The ideal funding lifecycle begins with philanthropy providing early-stage capital to design projects and run pilots. Not everything works. Not every partner succeeds. If you want quality, you test different approaches and keep what works. Philanthropy is essential because most funders will not support something that might not produce results.

As projects grow and scale, corporate donations provide the next layer. Ideally, these are genuine contributions for nature without companies claiming carbon offsets. This money develops the project to high standards.

Then, after ten years of implementation, the project receives carbon certification. Carbon credits are sold to corporates. The funding from those sales goes primarily to communities to sustain the work for the next 40 years. A portion supports government monitoring and evaluation. Keijzer acknowledges, "That's the ideal lifecycle. It's not always possible because it means you need significant philanthropy upfront, but that's the dream scenario."

Scale matters for achieving efficiency. WeForest typically works with projects of 10,000 hectares minimum for restoration, potentially 100,000 hectares for conservation. These thresholds exist because you need specialists in finance, forestry, community engagement, and other areas. If your project is too small, you either miss crucial expertise or the costs become prohibitive relative to impact.

The economic argument is compelling. Technological carbon capture and storage costs approximately $1,000 per tonne of carbon. Tree-based sequestration costs $15 per tonne. Yet investment continues flowing towards technology whilst restoration struggles for predictable funding.

This Is Nature, Not a Factory

One persistent frustration is that funders sometimes treat forest restoration as if it were manufacturing. They want to see incredible survival rates, predictable outcomes, guaranteed metrics. Whilst WeForest achieves high survival rates in some projects, this is not always possible.

Keijzer states directly, "When you're working with nature, especially with global warming, nature is very volatile. One day it can be flooded, the next day it can be a drought. That is complex, and it isn't getting any better. People need to remember that this is nature, not a factory."

Funders also need to understand that the visible work—trees growing—is only part of what makes projects sustainable. Baseline research to understand who lives in an area and how they depend on the forest. Protocols for Free Prior Informed Consent. Community meetings where you document attendance, take minutes, and gather photo evidence. Training people on what FPIC means. Adjusting meeting times so women can actually attend rather than just documenting that they didn't show up.

Keijzer emphasises, "We have to educate everyone what constitutes a solid project. The unsexy costs matter enormously, but someone has to pay for them."

The Window Is Closing

Keijzer's concern centres on an accelerating feedback loop. Deforestation used to change climate. Now climate is changing forestry itself. Fires, floods, and droughts are accelerating because so much forest has been lost that global warming is creating conditions where restoration becomes increasingly difficult.

She warns, "It's not by lack of wanting but potentially by lack of possibilities in the future. If we wait too long, we won't be able to do it. Now, we still have the choice to do something. There are areas that won't be too dry, too chaotic, with too much mortality. But the window is closing."

For 15 years, she's been trying to communicate this message. What troubles her is not just the pace of funding but the inefficiency in how restoration capacity is built—every organisation trying to develop every capability rather than specialising and collaborating.

Whatever WeForest has accomplished—85,000 hectares over 15 years—represents an area that could burn in two weeks during fire season in Canada. It's a drop of water on hot sand when you consider the global need. With the right funding, they could double that in the next five years, but even that wouldn't be enough. That's why the model needs to change.

Keijzer reflects, "My vision is not about achieving perfection everywhere. It's about achieving scale sufficient to actually address the crisis. It might not be perfect everywhere, but it needs to happen. It's not about being perfect. It's about getting it over with and stopping the desert and bringing water back and cooling temperatures."

The knowledge exists. WeForest and organisations like it have developed effective models over years of trial and error. These methods are open-source and ready to be replicated. What's needed is the systematic infrastructure to transfer that knowledge, provide ongoing support, and allow grassroots implementers to focus on delivery rather than building complete organisations from scratch.

Keijzer envisions, "I would like us to inspire thousands of other organisations that replicate what we do. Our legacy could be that we help them because we know how to do it. We become a coach. We become a model for them to replicate."

For this to work, established organisations need bandwidth. Currently, WeForest is consumed with funding and delivering its own projects. They don't have time to package their knowledge, train others, or provide ongoing technical support. If coordination mechanisms emerged—whether through international organisations coming closer to implementers or through new structures designed specifically for this purpose—the impact could be transformative.

The window is still open. We haven't yet reached the point where climate change has made restoration impossible in most places. But that window is closing. The model for collaboration exists. The knowledge is open-source. What's required now is the will to scale it systematically.

Keijzer concludes, "People respond to hope, not despair. The hopeful message is that we know how to do this. We have organisations with track records, methods that work, communities ready to engage. The barriers aren't technical. They're structural and financial. These are solvable problems if we choose to solve them with the same urgency that the climate crisis demands."