Explore the impact in

Nan province

Where Plant, Track, Transform began

Why Nan?

Nan is one of Thailand’s most important headwater provinces.
It feeds more than 40% of the Chao Phraya river — yet over the past decade

over a million rai of its forest has been turned into monoculture farmland.

Known as the maize capital

“The maize capital”

Demand from the animal feed market pushed many Nan farmers into maize and other single crops, at a scale where buyers come to the farm gate.

Farming on thin ice

Farming on thin ice

The income is short term, the damage is not: exhausted soil, a reliance on chemicals, and crop residue burned off because the land is too steep to clear any other way — costing both the environment and people’s health.

Caught in a cycle of debt

Caught in a cycle of debt

Maize and other single crops do not earn much, and debt leaves farmers without the capital to switch to something more sustainable.

Exposed to a changing climate

Exposed to a changing climate

With the forest gone and the soil washing away, floods, wildfires and smoke haze all hit harder as the climate shifts.

What it means for the environment

As nature returns, the whole ecosystem grows with it

Before planting — a monoculture plot (full image)
Before planting — a monoculture plot (mobile)
After planting — an agroforestry plot (full image)
After planting — an agroforestry plot (mobile)

Map of planting locations

Satellite imagery | sub-district boundaries within Santi Suk district | Doi Phu Kha National Park boundary
Trees planted under the project, within a 500 m radius of each planting site

แผนที่แสดงตำแหน่งพื้นที่ปลูกต้นไม้และจำนวนต้นไม้ที่ปลูกภายใต้โครงการต้นไม้ของเรา พ.ศ. 2565
แผนที่แสดงตำแหน่งพื้นที่ปลูกต้นไม้และจำนวนต้นไม้ที่ปลูกภายใต้โครงการต้นไม้ของเรา พ.ศ. 2565-2566
แผนที่แสดงตำแหน่งพื้นที่ปลูกต้นไม้และจำนวนต้นไม้ที่ปลูกภายใต้โครงการต้นไม้ของเรา พ.ศ. 2565-2567

What it means for the community

As nature returns, the community grows with it

Restored plots that earn in more than one way

Restored plots that earn in more than one way

With capital to plant the perennials that rebuild the soil, farmers can go on to grow a wider mix — fruit trees, beans and more — and earn throughout the year.

Keeping stingless bees

Keeping stingless bees

These bees pollinate, lift yields, and give a valuable honey used as medicine. They also cut burning and chemical use, because they can only live where there is neither.

Keeping goats

Keeping goats

Goats are fattened and bred for sale — a doe kids about twice a year — and they are undemanding eaters, clearing crop residue that would otherwise be burned, along with a wide range of plants.

New openings through the community enterprise

New openings through the community enterprise

Tree planting becomes a community business: working with local specialists to develop products tied to restoring the Nan headwaters — stingless bee honey soap, for instance.

Meet the people who plant

The Our Trees community enterprise group
brings together farmers in Santi Suk district, Nan province,

who plant together and have built businesses around it — raising seedlings, keeping stingless bees and goats, making the products that come from them, and hosting study visits. Our Trees helped them prepare, and they were legally registered in 2023.

We farmers of the Nan headwaters are the main asset for bringing the forest, the ecosystem and the environment back — keeping forest with soil, and soil with water. We plant native species, and in the end the farmer gets the use of those trees, and an income from them too.

Wararat Wut

Planting trees can change how Lua people live — away from single crops, towards mixed farming that earns more, and leaves the children and grandchildren an inheritance of trees.

Boonphiphop Boon-in

Before we planted, staff came out to the plot, showed us how, and tested the soil. I grew maize for more than twenty years — costs went up every year and the price went down, and I am getting on. So I tried yang na, takhian, phayom, bananas and fruit trees, mixed in among the maize, the rice and the rubber. Later on there will still be trees left for the grandchildren to see.

Duang Moonmee

Join us in planting our trees

to grow a future where nature, communities andall of us grow together