Why we're asking for your help

A fragment of a rainforest.

A message from Matt Smith, CEO, Hometree.

I've spent a lot of time over the last few years thinking about what it takes to bring a significant amount of nature back.

When people think about Hometree, they often think about planting trees. And while that's a critical, important and fundamental part of who we are, the reality of restoring nature is so much bigger and so much more complicated.

The land is owned by people. The landscapes we work in are built around partnerships. We raise money to buy land, restore and protect it, and engage with existing landowners, often farmers. It's critical that we build our projects around communities and people, and that we understand the ecological communities of a place and what needs to recover.

And alongside all of that, we need to understand how to pay for it.

Nature has an amazing ability to restore itself, and we've seen it time and time again. It's beautiful. Getting to the decision to restore a piece of land can often take a long time. You need to build a relationship with the place and people. You need to come to a decision about transitioning from one practice to another. It takes commitment and often significant financial investment.

And unlike many things we value in the world, a thriving woodland or a healthy peatland doesn't necessarily generate a financial return.

We've always had to be creative about how we fund our work. We've been collaborating and connecting with businesses, philanthropists, government partners and donors, many of whom have been with us for years. This combination of support has allowed us to grow, learn, be innovative and steadily expand what's possible.

Our approach has never been a single solution to financing nature. It's been a collaborative, blended model, with different people and organisations playing different roles to make it happen.

Now, after years of work and building what I believe is an incredibly capable, professional and dedicated team and organisation, we find ourselves at a moment that we've all been working towards.

Through our 4,000 acre Wild Atlantic Rainforest Project, which we launched in 2022, we have an opportunity to unlock a significant investment in nature restoration. It could allow us to secure and restore landscapes across the west of Ireland, protect precious rainforest remnants and bring back functioning ecosystems at a scale we've long been dreaming of.

Restoring that amount of land would be such an honour for our team. Singularly, it would be a huge achievement. But what's so special is the work we can build around it.

Our vision is to create places where communities can come together around nature, just like we do at our HQ. Community hubs with spaces for learning, gathering, volunteering and knowledge sharing. Places where children can discover the extraordinary wildlife on their doorstep, where neighbours can connect, and where local people can play a meaningful role in shaping the future of our landscapes.

That's always been a fundamental part of our organisation. An approach that recognises the deep connection between the health of our landscapes and the health of our communities. We can demonstrate that ecological recovery can go hand in hand with strong communities, local livelihoods and opportunities for people to connect with the natural world.

Because ultimately, we believe that ecosystems and communities depend on one another.

Taking on something of this scale can feel enormous.

We're confident that we can take care of these landscapes, that our communities are strong, that our commitments are financially stable, and that we've built, and will continue to build, the partnerships and resources needed to do this work properly.

It's why we've spent so much time developing our approach to nature finance, exploring new models and long-term funding for restoration. Bringing together different sources of support has been so critical to getting us to this point.

Right now, we have an extraordinary opportunity in front of us. But to unlock it, we need to raise significant additional funding in a very short space of time.

Our ambition is to raise €1 million in four weeks.

It's a huge ask, and one we don't make lightly. But I keep coming back to what this could mean.

Native woodlands returning to landscapes they've been absent from for so many generations. Rivers and peatlands recovering. Communities having places to gather, learn and feel part of something bigger, within a vibrant ecosystem.

Knowing that the decisions we make today could help shape these places for hundreds of years. 

So, if you've ever supported Hometree, planted a tree, or shared a belief that Ireland can be a place where nature thrives again, I'm asking you to stand with us now.

Whether it's through a donation, sharing our appeal, or helping us reach someone who might be able to support, it makes a huge difference.

And none of the effort that has brought us to this point, or the extraordinary opportunity in front of us, would be possible without the people who have stood alongside us.

Thank you.

Matt
CEO, Hometree