How one childhood moment grew into a million tree plantings

LOCAL rainforest regeneration organisation ReForest Now celebrated a major milestone last week, planting its millionth tree on a property at Teven.

Staff, volunteers, donors and partners joined in the celebration for the organisation, which was founded by Maximo Bottaro in his Brunswick Heads home in 2018 to restore the decimated Big Scrub rainforest.

The organisation’s first nursery was established in Mullumbimby Community Garden, and most of its Australian plantings are concentrated in the Northern Rivers.

In an emotional address before the planting ceremony, Bottaro recounted a childhood experience of watching his father cut down a eucalyptus tree.

“My little mind, unconfused, said, ‘that is like a finger coming from the Earth, it is bleeding like I can bleed’,” he said. “My mind zoomed out and felt for a bigger picture. A view that land, and tree and our blood itself are connected.”

While the Northern Rivers remains its priority, ReForest Now aims to save critically endangered rainforests around the world. The organisation has planted nearly 300,000 trees in Indonesia and has recently expanded into Gunung Leuser National Park in Sumatra, where it also runs anti-poaching initiatives in partnership with local communities.

ReForest Now hopes to plant another million trees within the next five years and plans to open a new community nursery and operations hub on Gulgan Road in Mullumbimby.

But Bottaro said funding remains a daily stressor that puts their operations at risk.

To help achieve their goal of reforesting 10 per cent of the critically logged Big Scrub, Bottaro encourages supporters to volunteer, donate or consider reforesting their own properties.