Undergrove

Every forest startsunderground.

Scroll down, and follow one seed from a burnt valley to a canopy.

Chapter one · Ember

In a burnt valley, one seed is still warm.

Wildfire took the hillside in 2019. Everything above the ground went with it. Not everything below.

Chapter two · Roots

Before it grows up, it grows down.

A native oak spends its first year almost entirely underground, holding the soil so the rain has somewhere to go.

Chapter three · Light

Then the light finds it.

Pioneer shrubs shade the seedling for three summers, then step aside when it is ready for full sun.

Chapter four · Canopy

A forest, from one.

Twenty years on, it holds a hillside together and shelters a hundred other lives. We just planted the first one.

UndergroveA rewilding fund for burnt and cleared land in Portugal and Spain, since 2016.

We don't plant forests from the top down. We start where every forest actually starts: in the soil, in the dark, with something small enough to lose in your hand.

How a hectare comes back

Four stages, over about twenty years. We stay for all of them.

  1. A single glowing seed on a dark, burnt plain beneath mountains
    i.

    Seed

    We collect seed from surviving native trees within twenty kilometres, so every tree we plant already knows the local weather.

    Year 0 · Seed banks in 4 valleys
  2. Glowing roots spreading through dark soil from the seed
    ii.

    Root

    Seedlings go in with a handful of soil from an old forest nearby. Its fungi find the roots within weeks and start feeding them.

    Years 1–2 · Mycorrhizal inoculation
  3. A green sprout breaking the surface in warm morning light
    iii.

    Light

    Fast pioneer shrubs shade the young trees through their first dry summers, then thin out as the oaks take the light.

    Years 3–8 · Pioneer nursing
  4. A great tree standing over a green valley under a clear sky
    iv.

    Canopy

    Once the canopy closes, the forest runs itself. We keep counting birds, fungi and water, and publish every number.

    Years 9–20 · Handed to the land

What has grown back so far

2,418hectares replanted across 11 valleys
3.1Mnative trees in the ground
214native species, and no monocultures
87%of trees still standing after five years
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. We are planting the one for twenty years from now.
Inês Carvalho, Undergrove field lead, Serra da Lousã

Plant yours.

Pick how much forest to start. Every tree is geotagged, and you get a photo of it every spring for five years.

Choose a planting
Plant one tree · €4 Registered charity no. 515 882 · 100% of your gift goes to planting