Southern African project builds toolkit to guide reforestation with indigenous trees

A regional initiative is developing a digital toolkit to help policymakers, farmers, and urban planners choose the right tree species for climate resilience across Southern Africa.

The Southern African Trees for Climate Adaptation and Resilience project, in partnership with Stellenbosch University, is creating an open-access bioinformatics platform designed to guide reforestation and urban greening in the SADC region.

Guy Midgley, a leading climate scientist at Stellenbosch, said the toolkit will combine ecological data, climate models and species distribution maps to ensure that planting efforts focus on indigenous trees most likely to survive and thrive under changing conditions.

“Climate adaptation in this region depends not just on planting trees, but on planting the right trees,” Midgley explained. “We want this resource to support both large-scale restoration projects and community-driven initiatives.”

The project comes at a time when Southern Africa is facing mounting environmental pressures from droughts and rising temperatures to deforestation linked to agriculture and urban expansion. Advocates argue that reforestation with indigenous species can help restore ecosystems, lock in carbon, and provide long-term social and economic benefits.