bonsai plants a tree for every ten payments you make through our app. So when you do your daily shopping, you’re being a total lifesaver in more ways than one -- creating a healthier planet and better livelihoods for people.
By simply linking our payment app to the good work of Eden Reforestation Projects, we can make the Earth a healthier place. bonsai offers a low-barrier way for everyday users such as yourself to easily help out. Your investment is small, but bonsai and Eden make sure the rewards for Mother Nature are big.
Simply put, we love what they stand for: people and the planet. Eden Reforestation Projects are ongoing in 8 different countries where they’ve already planted more than 700 million trees. Your trees will be planted in Madagascar. Eden is now recognised as one of the most cost-effective reforestation projects on the planet. They act on behalf of both the environment as well as the hard-working tree planters putting your trees in the ground.
Deforestation, war and severe drought are foreign topics to us. But here’s what happens when these things hit: the local people are forced to flee to cities where they often have to work as slaves or for slave wages.
The result?
They can’t earn enough to support their families.
Eden Reforestation Projects provide meaningful employment to the local population so they don’t have to go in desperate search of any job they can find and put their families at risk. Eden tackles extreme poverty and helps restore the ecosystem in one shot. We give that the two-thumbs-up.
Started in 2004, Eden is a non-profit organization that works in developing countries to rebuild natural landscapes destroyed by deforestation.
They engage directly with local villagers to create projects that will improve their livelihoods and help them climb out of poverty with dignity. Eden does this by providing planters with a decent wage that allows them to support their families, send their children to school, and in turn stimulate the local economy to improve their communities.
Eden plants native tree species and educates the planters on how to maintain, preserve and protect the forests they plant to ensure that sustainability is a long-term game. In 2020, they reached over 423 million trees planted, 225 million of which are mangrove trees.
We’ll plant 20 million trees in five years via the bonsai app. By linking this goal to a payment app, we make it possible for you to keep doing your busy consumer thing while the people (and planet) in need are taken care of with no effort on your part.
Set up an account with us. Buy things. We’ll do the rest. By doing this, you’re helping the planet and people. And, it’s easier (or as easy) as any other way of paying, with the added benefit of helping the planet. Use the bonsai app, go about your life as usual, and meanwhile trees are planted. It’s a little bit like magic.
The more you use bonsai to pay, the more trees you plant. Start paying using Google Pay at any store. Teeny, tiny, microscopic effort. Big huge win for nature. Your account will be completely set up in under three minutes. That’s less time than you spend standing in line to pay on a Saturday during the sales season. Think about it.
In one year, 100 mature trees can remove 1200 kg of CO2. In pollution terms, that’s the average weight of four adult male Polar Bears or an arctic walruses. While our trees aren’t mature yet, they will be one day, with your help. One hundred trees equals 1,000 transactions. Wouldn’t it be on fleek to visit a village in Madagascar one day and kayak down a river banked by mangroves that you helped plant by using the bonsai app?
Mangrove trees are the tree version of a superhero.
They’re real champions when it comes down to biodiversity and giving a one-two punch to climate change.
On average, a mangrove forest stores 6 to 8 times more than tropical terrestrial forests. They’re like the Pac-Man of dirty air.
The complex mangrove root systems filter nitrates, phosphates & other pollutants out of the surrounding water. They’re literal sponges.
The dense mangrove roots not only bind soils, they also build them. The above-ground roots slow down water flows and encourage sediment deposits. That’s a fancy way of saying they create nets for dirt.
Mangroves form a natural barrier between ocean and coastal communities. They reduce wave forces by 70 to 90% depending on the area. It’s estimated that they prevent nearly 55 billion EUR in flood damage each year. Not enough to stop a tsunami in its tracks, but a pretty darn effective breakwall, if you ask us.
Mangroves are valuable reservoirs and habitats for thousands of species, including crabs, corals, mammals, etc. The fact that they offer free housing for little critters, both cute and not-so-cute, makes them downright philanthropic, really.
They provide direct food security for nearly 250 million people in coastal areas: every square kilometre generates between 5 and 10 tonnes of fish per year. Even if you’re not big on fish, you have to appreciate that this is quite impressive.