Ecosystem Restoration Communities Watch video

Join a global community of everyday, local people and farmers in more than 30 countries, who are picking up the tools needed to repair our broken ecosystems, and creating lasting, systemic change to provide humanity with hope and a more abundant future.

Around the world people are helping nature heal itself by replanting, rebuilding soil, fixing water systems, re-establishing entire food webs, and increasing local biodiversity on degraded land.

Healthy ecosystems underpin everything that humanity needs to sustain life on this planet, yet almost three quarters of our planet’s land is degraded, and more than 3 billion people are affected by ...

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Around the world people are helping nature heal itself by replanting, rebuilding soil, fixing water systems, re-establishing entire food ...

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Funding Available
€20,000 per new project
Not in Ireland?
Change your region

To access funding

  • Complete a 30 Day Challenge
  • Report the impact of your project
Start a Ecosyst...
€20,000 per new project
Start project

“Ecosystem Restoration Communities is a fantastic idea. And it truly is, only if we all get together, that we can get the planet out of the mess that we humans have created. And I realized back in the 90’s, that unless we work with and empower loc...

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Ecosystem Restoration Communities
Dr Jane Goodall​

How to start a project on ChangeX

  • 1

    Submit your application

    Click the green start button to apply. It’s quick, free and easy.

  • 2

    Complete a 30 Day Challenge

    If your application is successful, complete a few simple steps in 30 days to start your project and access funding.

  • 3

    Activate your project

    Follow the 5 Step Guide and your action plan to bring the project to life.

  • 4

    Share impact

    Share an impact summary to access the remaining funding and continue your project.

Great for

  • someone who is passionate about the state of nature where they live
  • someone who is ready to take action to set up an initiative with their community to restore or rewild the land
  • someone who is a farmer that is experiencing drought, diminishing harvests, and poor soil conditions and wants to introduce regenerative farming techniques
  • someone who wants to educate people in the region about ecosystem restoration and/or regenerative farming
  • someone who wants to establish a tree-nurserie, or plant trees

Ecosystem Restoration Communities project essentials

5 Step Guide

  • Join the ERC movement
  • Establish your baseline – systematically map the starting point of your project
  • Plan and do the restoration work
  • Maintain the restoration site
  • Monitor and Evaluate the restoration work

Time

Suggested: Joining the ERC community takes 3 days of your time, over a period of one month. We will go through the opportunities and make sure you are featured on our platform. The training will take 5 days. This is an online course that you can follow on your own pace. After that we will help you to understand how to measure your impact while doing a baseline study together. This will take 7 days. The actual restoration of degraded land and planting of trees will require a long-term commitment to make sure the trees survive and thrive.

Resources

More information on how to get started and any resources shared by the Ecosystem Restoration Communities

14 Ecosystem Restoration Communities projects have already been started

See where

Meet the Social Innovator

Dear Earth Restorer

We live in interesting times. We can see the many ways in which vast numbers of people are suffering in many parts of the world. We can see overexploitation of nature, waste, pollution and war. We can also understand that every person and every living thing is endangered by human-induced climate change. It has become impossible for us to ignore what is happening. We have been called to act for the benefit of all who are alive and future generations.

As individuals, no matter how hard we work, it is not possible to consider restoring the Earth...but together we are an amazing force and - if we so choose - we can restore all degraded landscapes wherever they are on the Earth, by taking on this Great Work of our Time.

Let's restore the earth!

John D. Liu - founder of Ecosystem Restoration Communities

14 Ecosystem Restoration Communities projects have already been started

See where

Members

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Why a 30 day challenge?

    The 30 Day Challenge was developed by our Team based on our experience working with communities. We’ve learned that the first weeks are critical to build momentum and get off to a good start with any community project. Teams who complete these steps within the first month are much more likely to successfully complete their project!

    The Challenge is a series of simple steps that each applicant has to complete to get their project off the ground and unlock funding, if there is funding currently available for that idea in your region. Steps include watching a video and/or reading content, having a call with a ChangeX team member, forming a team so that you have support, having your first team meeting, sharing a team photo, and sharing a project action plan.

  • What can funding be used for?

    Once funding is received it can be used to cover direct set-up costs of the new community project. For example space rental, insurance fees, seeds and planting materials, tools, training fees; pretty much any materials you might need for a project that benefits your community.

    Funds cannot be used for the costs of work that has already been carried out, costs unrelated to the setup and maintenance of the new project, payments to group members for their work on the project. Funds can’t be used for the promotion of religious causes, non-charitable activities, sponsorship or fundraising events. Please read the terms and conditions for further details.

  • How do I know if there is funding available?

    On idea pages, if there is funding available for the idea in your region you will see “Funding available” and the region listed in the turquoise box. When you first login you will also see a green banner at the top of the screen saying “live funds near you” if there is funding available in your region. The ChangeX homepage will feature those live funds near you.

    A note on the waitlist: when all the funding has been allocated to applicants, new applicants will go on a waitlist. If some applicants that are in the fund don’t successfully complete the 30 Day Challenge their funding will be released and can be then allocated to those on the waitlist. To see if you are going on a waitlist check the main fund page, ideas fully allocated will have the note “Join the waitlist” instead of “Apply to start”.

  • What is ChangeX?

    ChangeX is a platform that connects communities to proven ideas and funding.

    By empowering local changemakers with proven ideas from social innovators and accessible funding from our partners, we aim to build healthier, more inclusive and sustainable communities. Our work is aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and together with our partners, we aim to impact 1 billion people globally by 2030.

    • Communities: Get the funding, resources and support you need to start impactful projects in your community.
    • Social innovators: Connect with local changemakers, access funding to scale your idea, and impact more communities globally.
    • Funders: Fund the themes and regions they care most about, with measurable impact, and at global scale.

    We believe that by bringing the best social innovations and the world’s changemakers together in a shared community, we can accelerate the spread of innovations across the world and have a bigger impact. Together we aim to unleash the potential of changemakers by enabling collaboration, by sharing knowledge and resources, by connecting changemakers across different disciplines and innovations and by opening up access to the world’s best proven social innovations to everyone.

Other ideas

  • Pop Up Museum

    Bring people together in conversation through stories, art, and objects.

  • Books for Bright Futures

    Get beautiful Book Dash books (in English/any other official South African language) to children in your community to support their health and happiness and build their future -- all you have to do is send our book files to a copy shop or printer and they will do the rest!

  • Play Day

    A playful event in communities that celebrates the skills, resources and personalities inherent to the people that live and play there.

  • Bike Library

    A Bike Library is a bike sharing scheme for families to promote a shift towards sustainable transport.

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