Environment

Eden Reforestation Projects

Research summary, last reviewed May 2026. US 501(c)(3), EIN 95-4804581. Official site.

Independent recognition: Charity Navigator 4/4 stars (94%) · Candid Platinum Seal of Transparency · SoGive Silver rating · ImpactMatters 5-star (evaluator now closed)

Headline outcome: Over 1 billion trees planted since 2005, at roughly USD 0.10 per tree

What does Eden Reforestation Projects do?

Eden Reforestation Projects, which rebranded publicly as Eden: People+Planet in 2024, restores deforested and degraded landscapes through a model it calls Employ to Plant. Rather than sending in contractors who plant and leave, Eden hires the poorest residents of a landscape at fair local wages, trains them in nursery work and species-appropriate planting, and pays them on an ongoing basis to grow, plant, monitor and protect native trees.

The two halves are deliberately linked. Paying local people to steward a recovering ecosystem removes the economic pressure that drove the original clearance, such as cutting mangroves for fishing fuel or forest for charcoal, and the trees are then looked after by people who live there and have a lasting stake in their survival. Eden’s particular emphasis is on mangroves and tropical species, which hold more carbon per hectare and offer stronger coastal-protection and fishery benefits than temperate plantings.

Founded as a US charity in 2005 by Dr Stephen Fitch, Eden became the first international non-profit to plant more than one billion trees, at a frequently cited cost of around USD 0.10 per tree.

Why did EveryDrop choose it?

Eden passed our four-stage vetting assessment, mapped to the advancement of environmental protection, with a strong secondary benefit in the relief of poverty through its employment model. Its benefits are non-excludable and its hiring is needs-based and governed by an equal-opportunity policy, so there is no prejudicial restriction on who benefits.

On governance it holds a 4-star Charity Navigator rating (94%) and the Platinum Seal of Transparency from Candid, the highest tier, with audited financial statements published back to 2018 and no reported diversion of assets. On effectiveness, the UK evaluator SoGive gave Eden a tentative Silver rating and called it “clearly the best of the tree-planting interventions evaluated by ImpactMatters”, which itself had rated Eden five stars and the most cost-effective tree-planting organisation in its analysis before it closed.

How effective is it?

Eden’s headline cost is roughly USD 0.10 per tree, and ImpactMatters calculated around USD 0.36 per tonne of CO2 equivalent sequestered. These are useful but should be read as Eden’s own framing rather than independently verified impact estimates. Eden reports mangrove survival rates above 80% and uses a mix of four mangrove species specifically to avoid the low-biodiversity monocultures that the wider scientific literature warns against. An independent carbon-quality reviewer, Thunder Said Energy, scored Eden’s removals at 59 out of 100, confident the activity is real and additional but not at the very top of carbon-removal quality.

What are the open questions?

We publish what we are monitoring as well as what we like. In November 2024 Eden ended its long-running partnership in Madagascar, its most iconic field geography, without publicly explaining why; the sites have been taken over by an organisation founded by Eden’s former Madagascar director. We would want that explanation on file. A Kenyan blog published allegations of financial mismanagement and worker mistreatment in 2023; these are uncorroborated by any authoritative source, and the one related employment court case was decided in Eden’s favour, but we log the allegations for monitoring.

SoGive also cautions that Eden does not appear to choose its programmes primarily on cost-effectiveness grounds, so future work may not match past performance. Finally, a 2025 emergency funding campaign suggests the philanthropy side of Eden’s shift toward long-term carbon-credit projects is under pressure during its development phase, which we will re-check at annual review.

Sources

This summary is derived from EveryDrop's internal vetting dossier, prepared under our four-stage assessment framework using public, verifiable sources. Assessments are re-checked every twelve months. If you spot something we should know, email [email protected].