As busy as a Tree
Your April hike with Morfo.
Hi there,
Before the end of a rainy season in Brazil and French Guiana, our teams are extremely active in completing the final plantations in these countries. This is what you will discover in the 3rd edition of our newsletter. We also wanted to share with you behind-the-scenes insights and highlight two people who are very important to us…
Let’s grow!
Adrien, CEO & Co-founder of MORFO
🌳 - THE FORESTS
🌱 Restoration in French Guiana
Last month was intense in French Guiana, with several reforestation projects happening simultaneously. In this photo, Hugo is observing one of the areas to be reforested. The soil in this area was very hard, sandy, and had minimal vegetation cover. Challenge accepted.
👩🔬 Experimental project in Bahia
From April 17th to 28th, our Brazilian team will be in Bahia for an open-field experimentation project. This project is conducted in partnership with the environmental organization Natureza Bela. It is a very important project for us, as the results of our recent months of laboratory research will be confronted with the reality of the field and monitored for several years. This project is also an opportunity to test our latest innovations in terms of monitoring and analysis of plantations.
🌳🌳 - THE TECHNOLOGY
🔬 Benefits of Drone Planting with Dr. Robin Duponnois
After our article on the collaboration between MORFO and research labs, we received many expressions of interest. To address this, we interviewed Robin Duponnois, Research Director at IRD, to announce the launch of a new agronomic research program with IRD called VEGE+. This program will last 24 months and aims to strengthen seed germination, seedling growth, and resistance while restoring soil microbiological life.
✨ AI revolution, even in the forest
To reforest on a large scale, we need revolutionary tools. At MORFO, segmenting surfaces, for example, helps us adapt our plantation from one area to another, increasing the success rates of our plantations. But it's a time-consuming task. Without R&D on new tools, our planting capacity is limited. Meta has released the "Segment Anything Model", a new AI model that can "cut out" any object in any image with a single click. This breakthrough technology could be a game-changer for us, allowing us to accurately label images and get contours of lands or individual plants at lightning speed. Without being a big fan of Meta and keeping a critical eye on AI, it is clear that this kind of innovation has the potential to revolutionize our reforestation efforts.
🌸 How do we select and collect species?
In this article, we tell you more about the seeds contained in our capsules. Note that these capsules are not only composed of seeds, you will also find substrate, made of microorganisms that favor plant and amendment growth, the overall purpose being to promote the development and survival of the seed.
🌳🌳🌳 - THE TEAM
🪜 Anticipate the scaling revolution
320 people joined our very first webinar on climate strategy and nature-based solutions. You can now watch it on YouTube or read our summary.
🎤 Events in Europe & Brazil
Our team is present at events in Europe and Brazil. Here is the list: WEBSUMMIT (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - May 1-4), HACKSUMMIT (Lausanne, Switzerland - May 11-12), CHANGE NOW (Paris, France - May 25-27), VIVATECHNOLOGY (Paris, France - June 14-17). If you would like to meet us at any of these events, simply fill out this form bellow. For 10% off on HACKSUMMIT tickets, enter the code JOINMORFO10!
🤾♂️ The G.O.A.T.
If you are French, you surely know him. If you are not French, just know that Nikola Karabatic is the greatest handball player of all time. Still active, he has chosen to invest in MORFO through the Teampact.ventures fund. He shared his experience and advice during a dedicated board meeting. Our last meeting was an opportunity to make a widely shared post on LinkedIn.
🌳🌳🌳🌳 - SOME GOOD SEEDS
Just like every month, we end this newsletter with articles that we wanted to share with you:
Why planting tons of trees isn’t enough to solve climate change. A really good article published by Carolyn Gramling in Science News Magazine. It's definitely worth reading in full. However, one specific sentence captures the essence of the topic: “The narrative has to change from tree planting to tree growing.”
The question should NEVER be 'how many trees'. Or 'what's the teqCO2', rather 'what's the overall impact?’. We highly recommend this article written by Manuel Pulgar-Vidal and Fran Raymond Price, climate and nature lead at WWF.
The work of collectors in Mata Atlântica. In 2017, when the work began, only 40 kilograms of seeds were collected by 12 people. In 2022, the 60 members - including 35 women - collected over two tons of seeds from 98 native plant species, which were used for ecological restoration of degraded areas, totaling 242 thousand reais in sales. Now, the Seeds Network of Vale do Ribeira, shares this knowledge in a book.
Anti-greenwashing guide for carbon credits. A great guide written by Riverse, targeting French buyers, but still useful for anyone trying to buy carbon credits.
Thank you for reading this newsletter until the end! If you enjoyed it, please share it with your audience, friends, or colleagues 🌍.
We'll be back again in May!
MORFO