Yishan Wong, a former Silicon Valley CEO, made a unique career choice after cashing out his stock options. Instead of starting another tech company, he decided to focus on a different kind of innovation – planting trees. Wong, who played a key role in building companies like PayPal, Facebook, and Reddit, realized that restoring the planet’s forests on a massive scale was the key to addressing humanity’s biggest challenge.
In 2020, Wong founded Terraformation with a bold mission – to restore 3 billion acres of native forest worldwide, an area larger than the entire United States. The company’s approach goes beyond simply planting seeds in the ground. It addresses critical bottlenecks such as funding gaps for forestry teams, seed shortages, lack of infrastructure and technology, and gaps in tracking and verification.
Terraformation has developed a support system that includes modular seed banks, solar-powered nurseries, and open-source forest management software called Terraware. They have also created a seed-to-carbon forest accelerator modeled on tech startup accelerators. Since its inception, Terraformation has facilitated the planting of over 4.7 million trees across 394 species, established 19 seed banks and 21 nurseries, and created more than 798 jobs.
Unlike commercial timber plantations that focus on fast-growing monocultures, Terraformation prioritizes biodiverse native forests. Native tree species support a wide range of life forms due to their co-evolution over millions of years. Wong emphasizes the importance of trees as anchor species in forest ecosystems, promoting the return of diverse life forms to these habitats.
Recently, Terraformation has received recognition for its innovative approach to reforestation. The company won the Keeling Curve Prize, the G20’s RestorLife Award, and the Global Sustainability Awards, where they were named SME Company of the Year. Wong believes in low-tech solutions as the right approach to climate change and highlights the importance of scaling systems in reforestation efforts.
For Wong, building an organization designed to be replicated rather than defended is crucial. He envisions a future where Terraformation’s model can be applied globally to restore forests and combat climate change. To learn more about Terraformation and their work, visit their website at Terraformation.com.
