Shaping Solutions for Climate, Communities, and Biodiversity
September 22, 2026
New York Climate Week
Bryant Park Area
Invitation-Only
8:00 AM – 2:00 PM
September 22, 2026
New York Climate Week
Bryant Park Area
Invitation-Only
8:00 AM – 2:00 PM
When a forest comes back, everything comes back with it: species, watersheds, livelihoods, and the communities whose futures are bound up in the land. The scale of reforestation the planet needs and the pace at which it's happening are nowhere close. We know this.
So how do we accelerate the pace and scale of reforestation?
Taking place during New York Climate Week, Reforest the Future brings together practitioners, funders, community leaders, and indigenous voices to actively tackle that question together.
Three concurrent tracks running in parallel, each designed to advance thinking in a critical dimension of reforestation at scale.
TRACK 01: FINANCE
Investment models, blended finance, and how capital structures can move restoration from concept to funded and delivering on the ground.
TRACK 02: TOOLS, TECH & TRAINING
Seed systems, project deployment, monitoring technology, and the training pipelines needed to build real capacity.
TRACK 03: COMMUNITIES
Centering Indigenous and local communities, and the practices that make restoration equitable, locally rooted, and enduring.
Every delegate is here because they are moving something forward.
Organizations with active reforestation programs and boots on the ground.
Philanthropies, impact investors, and blended finance partners deploying capital into restoration.
Companies with real supply chain and nature commitments and the mandate to follow through.
Building the tools, technology, and training infrastructure that makes restoration at scale possible.
Indigenous and local community representatives who hold the land rights and generational knowledge.
Fellow project developers, standards bodies, and practitioners who understand delivery.
Reforest the Future brings together stakeholders across the reforestation ecosystem to share hard-won lessons, examine diverse perspectives, and work through finance, delivery, and community systems together.
Make meaningful connections with practitioners, funders, community leaders, and partners working across the different dimensions of restoration
Contribute to the collective thinking on how reforestation gets financed, delivered, and owned
Turn insights and discussions into tangible progress, with conversations grounded in what restoration demands across the sector
Reforest the Future is an invitation-only summit. We review each application to ensure the room reflects a diverse set of stakeholders with the experience, expertise, and conviction to meaningfully contribute to the conversation.
Partnering on Reforest the Future connects your organization to the stakeholders across the reforestation ecosystem driving the field forward, and signals your commitment to advancing the collective effort. The sponsorship and promotional partnership opportunities offer different levels of involvement and visibility to fit your organization's role in the movement.
Terraformation builds the enabling layer for the global reforestation movement. We equip the people closest to the world's forests — local communities and forestry organizations — with the tools, training, finance, and innovation they need.
The summit opens with breakfast and a keynote, moves into 3 concurrent thematic tracks, and ends with a closing luncheon.
1. Finance
2. Tools, Tech & Training
3. Communities
1. Finance
2. Tools, Tech & Training
3. Communities
1. Finance
2. Tools, Tech & Training
3. Communities
Three concurrent tracks, each focused on a key lever to scale up reforestation: finance, tools & tech, and communities.
The day opens with Terraformation President Jad Daley and fellow reforestation leaders speaking on where the field stands, what this moment calls for, and what the day ahead will bring.
TIME
Brazil's reforestation finance model offers a clear lesson: it takes more than a single type of capital, government, philanthropy, or private investment to accelerate and scale forest restoration. Government action and philanthropic investment build the capacity and lay the groundwork; that groundwork is what makes private finance possible. This session examines what a functioning "country platform" for nature-based solutions looks like: the legal and policy frameworks, the sequencing of capital, how to de-risk, and approach to take to replicate that flow in regions like the Congo Basin, where capital has historically been hardest to deploy but hosts some of the most ecologically critical reforestation opportunities.
TRACK
TIME
FORMAT
What does durable, biodiverse reforestation entail when you're building it from the ground up, and where is the science still evolving? Drawing on lessons from projects including Terraformation’s Hawaii site, this session explores what community-scale restoration reveals about seed systems, species selection, and monitoring in practice. The panel surfaces the open questions the field is still working through.
TRACK
TIME
FORMAT
Opens with a short film on Terraformation’s project in Cameroon, followed by a conversation about what responsible pre-implementation entails: mapping customary land and resource rights, understanding existing livelihoods, and building community-driven consent processes. The panel examines the approach needed to get the groundwork right before a single tree is planted, and why investing in this phase strengthens the foundation for long-lasting reforestation.
TRACK
TIME
FORMAT
Funders from different sectors dive into what's crossing their desks right now. Each shares the types of reforestation projects they're seeing, what draws them to specific opportunities, and at what stage they typically get involved and why. The session provides practitioners and funders a real-time picture of where different types of capital are looking, what gaps exist, and what the current appetite for reforestation investment actually looks like across the funding landscape
TRACK
TIME
FORMAT
Restoration technology is changing what's possible in how we track, verify, and understand forest recovery. This session brings that to life through technology presentations, showing how different tools and data systems can work together to build a more complete picture of restoration efforts. The presenters then step back to discuss where monitoring technology is heading, where standards are still evolving, and what the field needs to align on to raise the bar on what gets measured and why.
TRACK
TIME
FORMAT
Getting community engagement right before a project launches is one thing. Sustaining indigenous leadership and local ownership once implementation is underway is another challenge entirely. Benefit-sharing structures, funder requirements, and decision-making processes can shift in ways that dilute ownership that looked solid on paper. This session draws on restoration experiences from around the world to examine what real ownership looks like under real operating conditions. The panel closes with a single forward-looking question to each speaker: if community-owned restoration is the norm twenty years from now, what needs to change starting today?
TRACK
TIME
FORMAT
Reforestation organizations and funders sit down to work through bringing capital together for reforestation. Using a structured conversation guide for group discussions, attendees examine how different types of capital can come together, surfacing the questions, barriers, and potential entry points each funder type brings to the table.
TRACK
TIME
FORMAT
A workshop designed to surface real implementation challenges and collectively work toward solutions, using Terraformation's projects as a starting point. Drawing on the diverse expertise of practitioners and organizations in the room, small groups dig into specific challenges and solutions across seed systems, planting, monitoring, restoration technology, and more.
TRACK
TIME
FORMAT
Community-based economic models are widely championed in reforestation, but are they delivering real returns to the communities they're designed to serve? This session puts the question directly to the room. Attendees break into small groups to work through specific examples, examining how community benefits get structured in practice and what it takes for these models to hold up over time.
TRACK
TIME
FORMAT
The day closes over lunch with closing remarks from reforestation leaders, reflecting on the day's conversations and what comes next.
TIME
Reforest the Future is a half-day summit taking place during New York Climate Week. Convened by Terraformation, it brings together practitioners, funders, community leaders, and indigenous voices to work through the financing, tools, and community systems that move reforestation forward at the pace and scale the planet needs.
Reforest the Future is designed for practitioners, funders, community leaders, indigenous voices, innovators, and corporate partners who are actively engaged in reforestation, whether you're early in your journey or have years of field experience.
No, the event is free.
Reforest the Future brings together a curated audience of reforestation stakeholders. We review each application to ensure the room reflects a diverse set of voices with the experience, expertise, and dedication to meaningfully contribute to the conversation. You'll hear from us shortly with an update on your application.
Reforest the Future takes place on September 22, 2026, from 8:00 AM to 2:00 PM, near Bryant Park in New York City, during New York Climate Week. The exact location will be shared with confirmed attendees.
Sign up for the Terraformation newsletter to stay informed on key takeaways, announcements, and future events.
If your organization is interested in partnering with Terraformation for Reforest the Future, please reach out to us directly at partnership@terraformation.com. We'll be in touch to explore how we can work together.
When a forest comes back, everything comes back with it: species, watersheds, livelihoods, and the communities whose futures are bound up in the land. The scale of reforestation the planet needs and the pace at which it's happening are nowhere close. We know this.
So how do we accelerate the pace and scale of reforestation?
Taking place during New York Climate Week, Reforest the Future brings together practitioners, funders, community leaders, and indigenous voices to actively tackle that question together.
Three concurrent tracks running in parallel, each designed to advance thinking in a critical dimension of reforestation at scale.
TRACK 01: FINANCE
Investment models, blended finance, and how capital structures can move restoration from concept to funded and delivering on the ground.
TRACK 02: TOOLS, TECH & TRAINING
Seed systems, project deployment, monitoring technology, and the training pipelines needed to build real capacity.
TRACK 03: COMMUNITIES
Indigenous leadership, community ownership, and what it genuinely takes to make restoration equitable, locally rooted, and built to last.
Program and speaker info coming soon.
Every delegate is here because they are moving something forward.
Organizations with active reforestation programs and boots on the ground.
Philanthropies, impact investors, and blended finance partners deploying capital into restoration.
Companies with real supply chain and nature commitments and the mandate to follow through.
Building the tools, technology, and training infrastructure that makes restoration at scale possible.
Indigenous and local community representatives who hold the land rights and generational knowledge.
Fellow project developers, standards bodies, and practitioners who understand delivery.
Reforest the Future brings together stakeholders across the reforestation ecosystem to share hard-won lessons, examine diverse perspectives, and work through finance, delivery, and community systems together.
Make meaningful connections with practitioners, funders, community leaders, and partners working across the different dimensions of restoration
Contribute to the collective thinking on how reforestation gets financed, delivered, and owned
Turn insights and discussions into tangible progress, with conversations grounded in what restoration demands across the sector
Reforest the Future is an invitation-only summit. We review each application to ensure the room reflects a diverse set of stakeholders with the experience, expertise, and conviction to meaningfully contribute to the conversation.
Terraformation builds the enabling layer for the global reforestation movement. We equip the people closest to the world's forests — local communities and forestry organizations — with the tools, training, finance, and innovation they need.
