Partner
success stories

From bringing back 14 million trees within 5 years to regreening an area the size of Amsterdam: all our regreening partnerships are unique! All the brands we collaborate with have one thing in common: they directly contribute to a greener and cooler planet. Learn more about our current partnerships.

Partnership cases
315,000
Bunds dug
14,000,000
Trees recovered
12
Grass seed banks
400,000
Hectares under restoration

How your
donation
contributes

By digging in with us, your company supports large-scale regreening projects in Africa. By using nature-based solutions we restore large areas of land, benefitting crop yield, water- and food security, biodiversity and our climate. Check out our 7 impact pillars:

1. Landscape Restoration

Land degradation is an ongoing cycle. With the disappearance of vegetation, the return of new vegetation becomes increasingly difficult: there are fewer nutrients in the soil and water infiltration is inhibited due to the dry, hard top layer of the soil. By using a diverse range of landscape restoration techniques, we give nature a helping hand and bring back vegetation in these degraded areas. With the support of vegetation, the soil becomes healthy and fertile, allowing plants and trees to keep on growing. In this way, returning vegetation helps to restore an entire area!

2. Regenerating trees

We don’t plant trees. Instead, we regenerate trees and support naturally occurring sprouts to grow big again! This is possible because there are many stumps of cut-down trees all across Africa. These formerly large and healthy trees were cut down in the past to be used as firewood, timber, for charcoal production or to make room for agriculture. With the right care, the stumps get the chance to grow into real trees again, in a quicker and more sustainable way than by planting new trees. Since we only uses indigenous tree species and their root systems are often still partly intact, their survival rate is often much higher. In our projects, we restore trees together with farmers using a technique called Treecovery, also known as Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) or Kisiki Hai in Swahili. 

3. Retaining water

Due to persistent droughts and overgrazing, the top layer of the soil has become hard in many of our project areas. When it rains, water drains to lower areas, causing erosion of the fertile top layer of the soil. By digging half-round shaped holes, also called water bunds, we can retain this water. By digging bunds, we open up the hard top layer so water has more time to enter the soil. This increases the amount of water available for vegetation, allowing the seeds in the soil to grow and the area to regreen. More vegetation also means that more water can be retained within the soil. The root systems of plants and trees make the soil more porous, which promotes infiltration, which in turn allows for more vegetation to grow!

4. Climate Adaptation & Carbon Sequestration

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Especially in our program areas, where the effects are already clearly visible. Rains have become unpredictable and more erratic, leading to both droughts and floods. Robust, resilient and adaptive ecosystems are absolutely crucial to cope with these changes – and the presence of vegetation plays a major role in this! By retaining rainwater and bringing back vegetation, landscapes can withstand these extreme situations better, leading to less damage both for nature and the people that rely on these landscapes. The presence of vegetation also decreases soil and atmospheric temperature, which can act as a mitigating buffer against the effects of the changing climate. 

Vegetation also takes CO₂ from the atmosphere through a process called photosynthesis. When vegetation is growing, there is a net uptake of CO₂, which decreases the concentration in the atmosphere. By regreening large areas of degraded land, the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere decreases, which has a mitigating effect on the greenhouse effect and global warming!

**Disclaimer: by regreening degraded landscapes and bringing back vegetation, our programs capture huge amounts of CO₂. However, Justdiggit does not formally compensate for carbon emissions. To compensate for carbon emissions in a formal way, specific certification of the program and the sequestrated carbon is required. This process can take multiple years and is expensive and we prefer to invest these resources into scaling up our regreening efforts. Instead, we make a projection of the amount of carbon to be captured in the next 20 years, based on the projected carbon uptake by Treecovery and performance of similar, already running programs.

5. Inspiring farmers

As part of our regreening mission, we aim to inspire and activate farmers in Africa to start regreening their own land. In our Treecovery project areas, we invite several well-respected and skilled farmers to become part of the Training of Trainers program. Here, we always aim for a balanced division of gender. By completing the training, they become Champion Farmers: ambassadors of regreening that help inspire and teach their fellow farmers in the community how to get started with regreening! Another way we inspire community members to regreen their land is by establishing grass seed banks and through a variety of communication tools. Examples of this are a weekly SMS service, movie roadshows, murals, and a regreening app providing tips and tricks on regreening. 

6. Positively impacting local communities

Regreening degraded landscapes not only positively impacts the people directly involved in the projects. It also positively impacts families and communities on a larger scale! For example, when a farmer starts regreening his or her land, the crop yield of the farm can increase. This can also contribute to more income for the farmers and their families. When communal land is regreened, by digging bunds or bringing back trees, the whole community benefits from the results. Greener and healthier land means more areas for their livestock to graze on and thus more food and income for the whole community.

7. Improving biodiversity

Biodiversity is the variety of species on earth. It includes all different types of life: animals, plants, and even microorganisms like bacteria. Rich biodiversity is an important factor to keep ecosystems healthy. Unfortunately, biodiversity on earth is decreasing rapidly; that’s why we need to regreen! By bringing back vegetation and restoring degraded landscapes, the number of different species in an ecosystem can be increased, which leads to an increase in biodiversity.

Donate with
Tax Benefits

Since 2010, Justdiggit has been assigned the status Public Benefit Organisation (PBO), translated in Dutch: Algemeen Nut Beogende instelling (ANBI). Through this status, your periodic donation becomes exempt from tax, which means your contribution will fully benefit our projects and communities! Being assigned the PBO status helps both us and our partners in realising our shared mission: regreening Africa to cool down our planet. Want to find out more about the tax benefits you can receive by making a periodic donation to Justdiggit? 

We work on 8
sustainable development
goals

SDG 1
No poverty

With our regreening projects we provide additional income for people. Community members get paid for the digging of bunds and by bringing back trees on farmland in Tanzania, we contribute to land regeneration and improved crop yields. With the grass seed banks, we specifically support Maasai women groups who earn extra income by selling grass seeds and hay. 

SDG 2
Zero hunger

We improve the food security of communities in our project areas, as regreening and restoring degraded landscapes creates more resilient farming systems and increases land productivity. 

SDG 5
Gender Equality

Gender equality is an important point of focus in all of our regreening programs. We actively engage women in the projects by assigning an even amount of women and men in our Champion Famers training programs. Another example is the grass seed banks, which are always fully run by Maasai women. These women are trained to establish and maintain the grass seed banks and acquire business and entrepreneurial skills. In this way, the grass seed banks provide additional income for them and improve their position within the community. 

SDG 6
Clean water & sanitation

We support communities to implement low-cost rainwater harvesting techniques. These interventions retain rainwater and help restore degraded areas, which increases water use efficiency and addresses water scarcity in agricultural systems as well.

SDG 8
Decent work & economic growth

Our regreening projects create income and employment opportunities in the areas we work. Digging the bunds provides an often welcome and important income for communities to sustain their livelihoods. Grass seed banks specifically support women groups to earn some income from grass seeds and hay. The majority of Treecovery (FMNR) farmers also report generating some additional income from their new trees. Champion Farmers sometimes use their newly acquired skills and social status to pursue a new job, for example within the local government. 

SDG 13
climate action

Bringing back vegetation is crucial for balanced and resilient ecosystems. Strong and resilient landscapes have a higher adaptive capacity to extreme situations, such as droughts and erratic rainfall. In this way, communities that depend on strong and resilient ecosystems will be less vulnerable to these extreme circumstances. By raising awareness of the importance of ecosystem and landscape resilience, communities can adapt themselves to mitigate the impact of climate extremities. Vegetation has a cooling effect on the local and regional climate, which also mitigates the direct effect of climate shocks. As growing vegetation captures CO2 from the atmosphere, the CO2 concentration decreases, which reduces the greenhouse effect. On a large scale, this has a positive impact on combating global warming!

SDG 15
life on land

Our regreening projects combat desertification by retaining rainwater and bringing back vegetation. By involving communities in our programs, we promote more sustainable land use and management. Our Treecovery programs promote the sustainable use of trees and reduce deforestation. Our efforts to combat the spread of invasive species contribute to more balanced and resilient ecosystems. All combined, by restoring tens of thousands of hectares of degraded and poorly managed land, we boost ecosystem resilience, biodiversity and nature in general!

sdg 17
parternships for the goals

We work closely together with (local) business and media partners, as well as local governments and landscape initiatives. In all our collaborations we focus on two-directional learning, both in knowledge and experiences. In this way, we help strengthen the global partnership to reach the goals for sustainable development!

"Only together, we can scale our impact and contribute to a green planet, with positive and tangible solutions."

Marjolein Albers
Marjolein Albers Managing Director at Justdiggit
before-after before dodoma
before-after after dodoma

Pembamoto, Tanzania (June 2018 - June 2022)

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Let's get in touch

In case you want to discuss requests, opportunities or questions personally, you can always give us a call at +31 (0)20 737 23 66

Maxime Kosterman team Justdiggit

Maxime Kosterman

Corporate Funding & Partnerships Manager
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Ronald van der Bij

Head of Global Business Development & Fundraising