Tony Rinaudo, known as the “Jungle Maker”
An Australian agronomist’s simple idea has turned one of the world’s driest landscapes into a remarkable environmental success story. According to World Vision, Tony Rinaudo, widely known as the “Forest Maker,” has helped farmers in Niger regenerate more than 200 million trees, not by planting new forests but by reviving living tree trunks, dormant root systems, and seeds naturally buried beneath the soil.
Its low-cost approach has restored millions of hectares of degraded farmland while improving food security and livelihoods for millions of people.
Hidden forest under the desert
When Tony Rinaudo arrived in Niger in the early 1980s, the West African country was facing severe drought, desertification and widespread deforestation. Traditional tree planting projects faced difficulties because newly planted seedlings often died due to harsh weather, poor soil, and animal grazing.Everything changed during what Rinaudo called his “eureka” moment. While traveling through the countryside, he notices what appears to be small desert shrubs. After closer inspection, he realized that they were actually sprouts growing from living tree trunks and root systems that had been underground for years.Instead of planting fresh trees, Rinaudo encouraged farmers to protect these natural shoots and prune them carefully.
By selecting the healthiest stems and removing the weakest ones, the underground root systems can direct their energy into growing full-sized trees again. This technique has become known as Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR).This approach requires very little financial investment because the trees are already below the surface. Farmers simply helped nature recover rather than trying to replace what was lost.
Tony Rinaudo, the Australian agronomist behind the Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) movement (Image source: Facebook/@Australian Embassy, Ethiopia)
How did 200 million trees come back?
Winning over local farmers was difficult at first. For many years, many believed that trees compete with crops for water and nutrients. Rinaudo worked closely with local communities, showing that managed trees could actually improve agricultural productivity rather than reduce it.With more farmers adopting FMNR, the effects can be easily seen. Native trees are beginning to regenerate on farmland to provide shade, prevent soil erosion and protect crops from strong winds.
The renewable leaf litter has enriched the soil with organic matter, improving soil fertility and helping it retain moisture for a longer period.Over the next two decades, more than 200 million trees were naturally regenerated across some five million hectares of agricultural land in Niger. These renewed landscapes produced an estimated 500,000 additional tons of grain annually, helping to provide enough food for at least 2.5 million people.
Additional benefits to farmers were increased firewood, fodder and fruit and increased income without the use of fertilizers or expensive irrigation systems.Unlike many large-scale reforestation projects, FMNR has spread largely through farmers themselves and neighboring communities adopting the technique after witnessing its success firsthand. Niger’s transformation is one of the world’s most important examples of large-scale restoration of natural forests.
A global model for restoring degraded lands
The success achieved in Niger has attracted global attention. Today, FMNR is practiced in dozens of countries across Africa and Asia through organizations such as World Vision. Rinaudo and his collaborators hope that this technology will eventually help regenerate a billion hectares of degraded land globally.According to experts, this method provides multiple environmental benefits beyond planting trees. Restored plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, improve biodiversity, reduce land degradation, and increase resilience to drought and extreme weather.
Because this approach relies on naturally occurring root systems rather than expensive tree planting campaigns, it is also much cheaper and easier to maintain.Rinaudo’s work has received international recognition, including the prestigious Right Livelihood Award, often referred to as the “Alternative Nobel Prize.” However, their greatest achievement may be demonstrating that even seemingly barren landscapes still contain the foundations of a thriving forest.Niger’s story shows that restoring an ecosystem does not necessarily require planting millions of new trees. There may be times when the answer is simply to understand the living forests beneath our feet and allow nature to heal itself. As climate change and desertification continue to put ecosystems around the world at risk, Niger’s stunning transformation is one of the best cases of how this can be done.