FAQs

RAIN is, we believe, the world‘s first reforestation network grounded in biomimicry. We love nature because we are nature, and we endeavour to understand the principles by which nature thrives, and the designs developed by nature to solve problems. In particular we are interested in understanding how networks in nature bring together diverse plants and animals into symbiosis that allows each to thrive within limits that favour the health and resilience of the whole. We believe that a network of diverse individuals, communities and organisations that work together and support each other can pool resources, knowledge and experience to create lasting impacts.

We believe in the power of collaboration, and we invite you to join us.

RAIN is inspired by the natural world, and in particular by species who work for the good of the collective. Danny’s chief love is slime moulds; he cultivates them, talks to them and gives talks about them. Bridget’s special interest is the many fungi that she stalks in the forest near her home in Sussex - their diversity and how each finds a niche where it can thrive. Bianca is especially fascinated by bees, how they are organised for the good of the whole and how they communicate with each other through their dances and their pheromones. As for James, he admires earthworms for their five hearts and their service to the soil, creating space, draining water and feeding microbes.

In terms of the environment, regeneration refers to the restoration of land to a state of health and resilience. Whereas “conservation” is about preserving the land (and in practice has often meant preserving it from humans), “regeneration” is about helping the land recover. In Brazil, huge swathes of the land are degraded - denuded of trees, nutrients leached out, soil compacted and baked by the sun and agricultural yields so poor that the land must be abandoned, often to be colonised by invasive grasses. Regenerative agriculture and reforestation can bring life back to the land and water back to the waterways; it makes the ecosystem more resilient.

Interestingly, regeneration was originally a term from theology - literally “being born again”, referring to spiritual rebirth. While we’re not promoting any religious agenda, for us, regeneration means much more than rebuilding topsoil. We are interested in projects that regenerate cultures and local economies, that promote food security, political autonomy, that give a voice to the marginalised. We also recognise that the climate and ecological crises are occurring alongside a mental health crisis that goes beyond “eco-anxiety” to the core of our experience as human beings today. We believe that regenerating our psyches and our societies alongside our environments is key. And for some of us, that is spiritual rebirth too.

In terms of the environment, regeneration refers to the improvement of the land. Whereas “conservation” is about preserving the land (and in practice has often meant preserving it from humans), “regeneration” is about making the land better. In Brazil, huge swathes of the land are degraded - denuded of trees, nutrients leached out, soil compacted and baked by the sun and agricultural yields so poor that the land must be abandoned, often to be colonised by invasive grasses. Regenerative agriculture and afforestation can bring life back to the land and water back to the waterways; it makes the ecosystem more resilient.

Interestingly, regeneration was originally a term from theology - literally “being born again”, refering to spiritual rebirth. While we’re not promoting any religious agenda, for us, regeneration means much more than rebuilding topsoil. We are interested in projects that regenerate cultures and local economies, that promote food security, political autonomy, that give a voice to the marginalised. We also recognise that the climate and ecological crises are occurring alongside a mental health crisis in that goes beyond “eco-anxiety” to the core of our experience as human beings today. We believe that regenerating our psyches and our societies alongside our environments is key. If your spiritual rebirth fits with that vision, we’re down with that too. 

Communities and funders alike all want to ensure that investments are doing what they are supposed to. Because the focus of our work is regeneration, not just a single metric like carbon sequestered, we are interested in a range of data - and so are our partners, who usually have specific ideas in mind when they approach us. This may include cultural and economic security, access to nutritious food, good mental health etc. We begin by listening and asking open questions, which gives us a feel for some of the things that quantitative data can miss.

Once we understand the challenges and concerns, we work together to find ways to measure appropriate outcomes. Then we collect baseline data. We record the diversity of plants and animals, which helps us understand how strong the ecosystem is, water flow in springs and other measures of hydrology, and we ask community members how the waterfall looked ten years ago or which springs fed which fields. We also record the number and growth rate of trees planted, which we correlate with GIS data to give us a picture of how much carbon our projects are sequestering. Carbon is not the focus of our work, but it's important to a lot of investors to balance their carbon footprint.

As the project progresses, we take further measurements. Gathering data over time allows us to build a picture of how the intervention is changing the landscape and the lives of its inhabitants. It also tells us how we should adjust our techniques to do better.

Many nonprofits with good intentions replicate a colonial hierarchy with a monarch at the centre and protectorates at the periphery. At RAIN we prefer the mycorrhizal network as a model, so our structure is distributed and decentralised rather than hierarchical. Fungi do not tell trees how to grow, and RAIN does not tell Brazilians how to plant their land or meet their challenges. Like mycelia, we facilitate the trade of resources (money, volunteers, sustainable products) and information (media, best practices, educational materials) for mutual benefit, and we encourage direct connections between nodes on the network. Practices and templates developed by our partners are shared across the network and adopted where appropriate.

RAIN operates as a Community Interest Company (CIC) in the UK. The CIC is a more flexible structure that allows our team to respond to the changing needs of our partners, and also allows us to help our partners sell regenerative products and generate sustainable business.

Yes. We have partners that are charities whose charitable aims are met by the kind of projects RAIN supports, and they will be happy to act as intermediaries between you and our partners. Contact us for more information.

As individuals we may have strong opinions about who is a better president or prime minister. RAIN CIC, however, is completely apolitical. Community politics need to be considered in any intervention, especially in the Indigenous world. National politics

One reason is that politics in Brazil can be not only divisive but dangerous. NGOs come under a lot of scrutiny from the state, and activists and Indigenous forest guardians face the threat of violence. If staff make statements or raise banners in support of some party, movement or army, our organisation may be seen to be taking a stance. That could make our partners into targets, either now or in the future once the political climate changes or the current hope turns into disappointment.

Another reason is that we favour nature-based solutions, not political resolutions. Floods and droughts do not care for political differences; they cross borders and will not be legislated away. We are interested in sharing best practices on managing land, and we have little intelligent to say about how people should be managed, about who should be running what or whether the latest law is a good one or a bad one.

We believe that change will come, at first gradually and then all at once, when enough people start to work and think collectively. Let’s make our own structures in the image of the world we want to see, and welcome people who are questioning the structures they were born into.

You can see our active projects on the map on the homepage. We are networked over all of Brazil from rural regions like the Valley of Jequitinonha to the high-density urban slums of Recife, and across all biomes including the Amazon, the Cerrado or Brazilian savannah and the Atlantic Forest, where the majority of our work is concentrated. We have several successful pilots completed, many more underway and in development, and some larger projects with corporate funding in their early stages.

If there is a particular region you are connected to or want to support, talk to us - we will almost certainly have connections!

Any community that has survived the last few centuries of Brazilian history is, by definition, resilient. By preserving and spreading their knowledge in times of climate and ecological crisis, we are safeguarding our own futures as much as theirs. To that end, we are committed to amplifying the voices of the marginalised in various ways, including by providing equipment and a platform for Indigenous media organisations, introducing Indigenous knowledge to the UK schools curriculum and others. If you have links to one of these communities and are willing to help, please get in touch.

In the Indigenous world, our initial projects were with the Terena nation in the South and the Guarani on the Atlantic coast. We also began a cultural regeneration project with a musical collaboration involving the Noke Koi of the Amazon; this is just the first step of a project we’d like to develop with them.

There is no question that Indigenous cultures need to be at the forefront of regenerative initiatives, both because their lands preserve much of the biodiversity of the planet and also because their projects have been much more successful in restoring the land. That said, the difference between Indigenous cultures and European cultures are vast, and no one who works in the field will tell you it is a simple matter to bridge that ocean. Mato Grosso do Sul, where our projects with the Terena began, means ‘thick woods of the South’ and recalls how it looked before colonial powers arrived. Much of it has gone to pasture and worse in this traumatised landscape, and there are also deep psychological scars left on the post-colonial landscape.

We have good networks and the best of intentions, and we are convinced that collaboration is key to a sustainable and equitable future - but moving forward together is a delicate process that requires a great deal of care.

We are interested in any culture that is intimate with the land and has knowledge and the will to work with it in a regenerative form. Quilombos (pronounced “Key-Lom-Bows”) are settlements founded by formerly enslaved people - either those who escaped their chains or those who were freed after abolition in 1888 and left to fend for themselves without compensation. They have kept alive ancestral traditions that arose in Africa, and mixed them with local Indigenous cultures, producing something very unique, very Brazilian and very beautiful in terms of its cultural expressions.

Quilombolas (people from the quilombos) learned how to survive and thrive by making a profound connection with the biomes they settled in, learning the uses of their plants. The communities we are connected with are in the cerrado, but this culture is alive across much of Brazil.

The simple answer is yes, but carefully. We believe that there is strength in diversity, and we recognise that plants, like humans, have always migrated - often together. Many of the most useful species in the Amazon were brought in millennia ago and have been cultivated for their helpful impacts on the biome and the lives of the Amazonian tribes that favoured them.

Indigenous people have always adapted to the plants that arrived on their shores, and many plants that the Spanish and Portuguese brought in have become valuable allies in their healing traditions. Agroforesters recommend a similarly inclusive approach. For example, the non-native eucalyptus grown for paper and charcoal in Brazil turns enormous swathes of land into “green deserts” without a bird or an insect to break up the monotony, and severely disrupt regional hydrology - and yet this species that grows four times faster than most is one extremely useful trees in an agroforestry system, securing land from erosion with its deep roots while providing sustainable fuel, building material and organic matter to feed the soil.

Please consider making a donation. Or perhaps you are connected to a school that might join Regeneration:Network, or a business that might support one of our partners on the frontline. You can also share our social media, and are particularly interested in connecting with businesses on LinkedIn, so sharing our updates there would be most appreciated.

Tell all your friends about us, send us relevant articles or contacts, messages of love and encouragement…

We would not be able to function without our team of dedicated volunteers, but the less dedicated volunteers can make things difficult, so please think carefully about your capacity and motivation before you volunteer. Onboarding and managing volunteers is time-consuming and our team is small and stretched.

With that caveat out of the way, you can find details about volunteering on the ‘get involved’ page - let us know what you are good at and how you want to contribute, and if you have any questions or ideas, please feel free to contact us.