About

TERRAGRN is transforming degraded and unutilised lands into sustainable, biodiverse, and carbon-sequestering agroforests.

We believe that businesses can no longer ignore the climate crisis. By investing time and capital into nature we can revive biodiversity, sequester carbon, improve productive yield, generate jobs, bring more women into the workforce, and create socio-economic progress.

Our mission is to create positive social, environmental, and economic change through inspirational nature-based solutions, developed in collaboration with local communities.

We will initially focus our efforts in Africa, before expanding our agroforestry systems internationally. We are uniting Government agencies, local communities, global foundations, Multilateral Banks, Development Finance Institutions, research universities, regional NGOs, and Corporations to deliver its unique vision, based on five key components:

Solving as much as possible with every decision and action.

How we do this:

• Mixed-planting: Our agroforests contain a mixture of conservation, productive and commercial plants in an integrated design to restore degraded lands while building commercial sustainability. 

• Encouraging biodiversity: Our agroforestry system improves soil health and boosts the levels of groundwater, in turn, encouraging biodiversity and local animal and plant species to return

• Using the environment to help people: The large-scale agroforest will create food security, and foster new jobs and skills, supporting social development in local communities.

• Mixed-market business: The agroforest will have multiple economic outputs making it resilient to the challenges of the climate crisis. It will support the transition into the green economy, providing solutions for clean energy sectors, materials for construction, pulp and textiles and it will grow and distribute food and use its diversity of plants to increase economic activity in supply chains.

We believe that making a big difference is the only way to tackle the climate crisis.

How we plan to make a significant, tangible impact:

• We are transforming 5,000+ hectares of unused, barren land into a sustainable land management agroforestry project with 10+ million plants. We will plant, protect, and conserve 15+ local non-invasive species including fast-growing plants such as bamboo

• Over 5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide will be sequestered over 30 years

• Sustainably harvested bamboo will provide over 250k tonnes of dry bamboo biomass annually to be used in the production of renewable energy solutions (green hydrogen) and material solutions for furniture and construction sectors

• Thousands of new jobs will be created within the local region, supported by a skills development programme

Fostering a symbiotic relationship between business and community

How community and business will come together: 

• Unused community land will be leased by TERRAGRN, on a long-term basis from the community property association.  

• TERRAGRN is developing plans to invite the community property association and the workforce into shareholding, creating far-reaching economic development and wealth creation for local people. This will also ensure the impetus to protect the forest across future generations.

Using material and agricultural knowledge to safeguard the planet 

How planting bamboo will help our planet:

• Bamboo absorbs more carbon dioxide than any hardwood tree, and emits more oxygen than most other plants 

• Bamboo is fast-growing and regenerative. It does not need replanting throughout its long lifespan (60-120 years)

• Bamboo can be sustainably harvested 

• There are several varieties of Bamboo in the world and in South Africa. The clumping type is non-invasive and the specific species Bambusa Balcooa that TERRAGRN is working with is naturalised in South Africa

• Bamboo has a shallow root system which protects soil from erosion. It can survive droughts and fires due to high moisture absorption rates

Understanding carbon is key to our, and our planet’s success 

How we think about carbon:

• TERRAGRN’s project will deliver profits from operations and does not need carbon credits to sustain our business model

• Beyond sequestering carbon through our plants, we will infuse biochar, a highly potent carbon material produced in-house, into our soils to store carbon for centuries.

• We will use carbon as collateral to pre-finance the large-scale project, as an instrument to reward local communities, workforce, and TERRAGRN shareholders with climate dividends and to purchase parametric insurance to de-risk our business.

• We have designed our business to have a lower carbon footprint compared to the carbon we sequester, making us a carbon-negative company.