CommuniTree has grown from a smallholder reforestation project launched in 2010 into Nicaragua’s largest reforestation initiative. It now works with 4,954 farming families across 18,436 hectares, using mixed-species forestry, silvopastoral planting and coffee agroforestry to restore degraded land and grow forests that remove carbon as they mature.
Since then more than 28 million trees have been planted, and CommuniTree has developed from an ambitious local idea into a national programme with a substantial public record of project design, monitoring and carbon issuance. C Level has been alongside it since the beginning.
For us the important part is not the tree count on its own. Reforestation only works if the forest stays valuable to the farmer who owns the land, and if the project can see where planting, maintenance or payments are falling behind early enough to do something about it. CommuniTree has spent 16 years building around those two problems. It is one of the high-integrity carbon projects we place with businesses.
How CommuniTree makes reforestation pay for farmers
Under Plan Vivo, the project is designed to make sure that farmers who grow trees on their land get more value from reforesting their land than deforesting it. This approach, combined with CommuniTree’s own technology platform, means every farm reforested stays forested.
The economic logic is unusually clear. A farmer with limited land cannot be expected to keep forest standing simply because somebody a long way away wants a carbon credit. The trees have to improve the value and the resilience of the farm itself.
CommuniTree uses carbon finance to carry farmers through the expensive early years of establishing trees, then combines that with longer-term income from the forest. The project’s design document describes payments for ecosystem services alongside income from sustainably managed timber, fuelwood, posts, coffee and other forest products, depending on the planting system.
The split of the money is written into that document too. For each year’s batch of credits, 60% of the money from the sale goes into a Community Fund allocated entirely to farmers. The remaining 40% pays for the work of running the project.
What a farmer is paid depends on what they do. Payments are tied to the activities they agreed to and to tree-growth targets, rather than to simply joining the programme.
The benefit to the community is therefore part of the mechanism that keeps the forest standing. If growing trees does not work economically for the farmer, the carbon model will not work for long either.
Of credit revenue to farmers
60%
Held back as a risk buffer
15%
Years working with C Level
16
CommuniTree at a glance
Country
Nicaragua
Project started
2010
Land area
18,436 ha
Participant families
4,954
Trees planted since inception
More than 28 million
Plan Vivo certification
PV Climate Version 4
Plan Vivo Certificates issued to date
5,000,358
Plan Vivo Certificates issued in 2025
321,340
Forest systems
Mixed-species forest plantation, silvopastoral planting and coffee agroforestry
Unique tree species recorded in 2025
129
Key watersheds being restored
6 out of 6
Formal forest inventories in 2025
More than 7,000 ha
Why CommuniTree forests are designed to last
Getting trees into the ground is the easy part to photograph. Establishing a forest is harder.
CommuniTree’s 2025 annual report sets out a lesson from 15 years in the field: what happens in the first few years after planting decides more than anything else whether a parcel becomes a healthy forest. Planting at the right time, early maintenance, and stepping in when growth falls behind all matter.
CommuniTree is built around that. Farmers receive technical support, field teams track individual parcels, and formal monitoring checks how forests are establishing across different years of planting. In 2025 inventories covered more than 7,000 hectares, the programme’s largest monitoring season so far.
The carbon accounting assumes things can go wrong as well. The project’s design document scores the threats to the forests, including land tenure, fire, drought, storms, pests and farmers leaving the programme, and arrives at a combined risk of 11%. The project rounds that up to 15% to stay on the cautious side and holds those credits back. In 2025 that came to 389,197 certificates withheld. The calculation is reworked every five years.
Biological carbon carries reversal risk. That does not make forest restoration a weak climate intervention, but it does mean the carbon is held in living trees and has to be managed as such. The questions worth asking are whether a project has designed for that risk, whether it monitors it, and whether the farmers have economic reasons to keep the land forested. CommuniTree answers all three, and that is why C Level has always regarded it as much more than a tree-planting project.
How CommuniTree monitors 18,436 hectares
CommuniTree is a technology leader in digital monitoring, reporting and verification. That is the work of proving what has been planted, and how much carbon it has removed.
The project combines monitoring on the ground with mobile data, satellite imagery and machine learning, through its own technology platform. The system ties each farm parcel to its contract, its agreed activities, its monitoring data and its carbon accounting. Behind it are people: the 2025 annual report records 197 permanent local jobs and more than 3,000 seasonal workers hired across the programme.
In 2025 the project strengthened the parcel-level dashboards its field teams use, so they can see where activities are on track and where a farmer needs more support. Contracting moved onto the platform, with agreements written for individual parcels, and most farmer payments moved to mobile wallets or bank transfers.
The technology matters because of what it lets the team do. A satellite image is not evidence of quality on its own. Its value is that somebody can spot a parcel falling behind, match that against what should have happened on the ground, and get help to the farmer while the trees are still young enough to save.
If you are weighing one project against another, our guide to how to choose high-integrity carbon credits sets out the tests we apply.
What makes CommuniTree different
4,954 farmers restoring 18,436 hectares
Deep, long-term engagement from thousands of smallholder farmers across landscapes has been achieved by a highly capable team combining technical expertise, project management, finance and market experience. Thousands of smallholder actions connect to restore ecosystems across entire regions.
Farmers retain ownership of their land
CommuniTree works with farmers who can show recognised ownership of the land they enrol. The design document states that carbon rights follow land ownership in Nicaragua, and technicians upload the ownership documents through the mobile system. The farmer stays the landholder and enters a contract covering the planting, the carbon and the payments.
Restoration across all six key watersheds
The 2025 annual report records six out of six key watersheds being restored. Thousands of separate farm parcels start to reconnect tree cover across whole landscapes instead of working as isolated planting sites.
129 tree species, chosen with farmers
The 2025 annual report records 129 unique tree species across the programme. Mixed-species planting is deliberate, using trees suited to the place and letting natural regeneration add more diversity as the forests develop. The aim is to build productive forest systems that fit the farm, restore degraded land and keep storing carbon over time.
Satellite, field and machine-learning monitoring
CommuniTree combines satellite imagery, ground monitoring, mobile data and machine learning to track performance across thousands of farms. It is one of the reasons the project has been able to scale while keeping unusually strong visibility over what is happening on the land.
Why we pay for CommuniTree’s carbon up front
C Level pays for regeneration before the carbon arrives, and we intend to keep doing it. A forest needs the money while it is being established, not decades afterwards. Plan Vivo has always allowed a project like CommuniTree to be paid that way. It is a deliberate design, not a shortcut.
The term for it is ex-ante, which means the certificate is issued in advance of the carbon arriving. CommuniTree issues this way, under PV Climate Version 4. Trees are planted, monitored and reported, a certificate is issued, and the forest goes on absorbing the carbon that certificate stands for as it grows. That money up front is how farmers are paid through the expensive early years, which is the whole reason the model exists.
Plan Vivo’s Version 5 keeps that route open. It also gives each stage its own name, from carbon that is expected to carbon that has been independently checked:
| Plan Vivo Version 5 certificate | What it stands for |
|---|---|
| Future certificate (fPVC) | Carbon removals expected in the future |
| Reported certificate (rPVC) | Carbon benefits that have happened and been reported, but are still waiting for an independent check |
| Verified certificate (vPVC) | The final carbon benefit, after an independent check |
Version 5 widens the choice of when to come in, and that is the whole of the change. You can fund expected removals up front, as C Level’s clients have done for years. Or you can wait, and buy carbon that has already been measured and independently checked, which usually costs more.
Neither is the better credit. They pay for the project at different stages and they support different claims. A buyer should know which of the two they are getting, and we will always say. While CommuniTree moves across to Version 5 we are happy to supply its Version 4 certificates, because they are excellent.
What CommuniTree’s carbon numbers mean
Plan Vivo records 5,000,358 Plan Vivo Certificates issued to date for CommuniTree. That is a count of certificates issued. It is not a statement that 5,000,358 tonnes have already been taken out of the atmosphere and independently checked, and we will not present it as one.
How the carbon is financed and how the number is described are two separate questions. Paying up front is a good way to fund a forest. It is not a reason to describe the total loosely, and we answer both straight.
The most recent independent audit linked by Plan Vivo was carried out by Aster Global, and covers the monitoring period from January 2015 to December 2021. Aster Global checked the project’s ex-ante greenhouse gas assertion and confirmed that CommuniTree complies with the Plan Vivo Standard 2013, which was the standard in force across that period. The assertion came to 2,388,335 tonnes. After 358,250 were held back in the 15% risk buffer, that left an issuance of 2,030,085 certificates.
Plan Vivo’s own buyers’ guide to Plan Vivo Certificates, published in April 2026, sets the certificate types out in full.
What a business should check before buying CommuniTree credits
The first question is when you want to come in. If you want to fund community-led reforestation and the removals those forests will deliver as they grow, CommuniTree’s current certificates do exactly that. If your requirement is specifically for carbon that has already been removed and independently checked, that is a later stage of the same project. Say so at the start, and we will tell you what is available.
Then the unit itself. A buyer should know its vintage and registry status, what verification applies to it, how the retirement will be recorded, and what the purchase is meant to support or substantiate. Plan Vivo certification is an important filter, but it does not remove the need to understand the unit.
If you are considering CommuniTree for a business purchase, ask us for the units currently available and the evidence that applies to them, rather than working from the project headline.
C Level and CommuniTree: 16 years working together
C Level’s relationship with CommuniTree started before most of the carbon-market language now used to describe projects like this one existed.
We first spoke to Kahlil Baker on the phone 16 years ago, when the proposition was still a bold question: could carbon finance make reforestation economically worthwhile for small farmers in Nicaragua? We have watched the programme grow from those early years to 4,954 families and more than 18,000 hectares.
Scale is not why we still work with it. What has kept CommuniTree relevant is that the project has never stopped developing the practical systems underneath the carbon credit: farmer payments, forest establishment, monitoring, contracts, field support and risk management.
That is also why we are comfortable putting the underlying documents in front of buyers. The project has a long public record, and all of it is linked further down this page.
Frequently asked questions about CommuniTree
What is CommuniTree?
CommuniTree is a Plan Vivo certified reforestation and carbon removal programme in Nicaragua. It works with smallholder farmers using mixed-species forest planting, silvopastoral systems and coffee agroforestry.
How large is CommuniTree?
The 2025 annual report records 18,436.44 hectares and 4,954 participating farming families. More than 28 million trees have been planted since the programme began in 2010.
Is CommuniTree certified by Plan Vivo?
Yes. Plan Vivo lists CommuniTree as certified under PV Climate Version 4. Its full public record, including the project design document, audits and every annual report since 2010, is held on the Plan Vivo registry.
Are CommuniTree’s 5,000,358 certificates verified carbon removals?
No. The figure is Plan Vivo’s running total of certificates issued to date, and CommuniTree issues in advance of the carbon arriving. So the figure should not be read as 5,000,358 tonnes already removed and independently checked. That is a point about how the number is described, not about the quality of the certificates.
Earlier project periods have been audited independently. Aster Global checked CommuniTree’s ex-ante greenhouse gas assertion for 2015 to 2021 against the Plan Vivo Standard 2013.
What does ex-ante mean, and is it a weaker credit?
Ex-ante means the certificate is issued against a carbon benefit expected in the future. The planting, the monitoring and the report come first. The carbon itself arrives over the years that follow, as the forest matures.
It is not a weaker credit. It is how money reaches a project while the forest is being established, which is when it is needed. C Level has funded regeneration this way for years and will continue to.
Does Plan Vivo Version 5 replace the certificates CommuniTree issues now?
No. Version 5 keeps the option of funding a project up front and adds separate names for the future, reported and independently verified stages. It widens the choice of entry point and makes the stage of a unit easier to state. It does not make CommuniTree’s current Version 4 certificates a lesser product, and we are happy to supply them.
How does CommuniTree monitor its forests?
Field monitoring is combined with mobile data, satellite imagery and machine learning. In 2025 formal inventories covered more than 7,000 hectares, alongside parcel-level digital tracking used by the field teams.
Can businesses support CommuniTree through C Level?
Yes. C Level works with businesses that want to fund CommuniTree’s community-led reforestation and the carbon removal expected from it. We supply the evidence that applies to the particular units on offer, so a buyer can see what is being funded and how the purchase should be described. If you have not measured your emissions yet, start with our carbon footprint consultancy.
CommuniTree documents and evidence
For a transparent overview of the project’s progress and impact, the latest annual report is available to download.
The technical evidence is public as well. You can read the Project Design Document, the independent audit covering the 2015 to 2021 monitoring period, the project’s record on the Plan Vivo registry, which lists every annual report since 2010, Plan Vivo’s buyers’ guide to Plan Vivo Certificates, and Taking Root’s own CommuniTree project page. C Level partners can continue to access client-specific documentation through the dedicated Client Hub.
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Discuss CommuniTree with C Level
We have worked with CommuniTree since 2010. If you are considering the project, we can talk you through the current route to purchase, the evidence available for the units on offer, and whether CommuniTree fits what your organisation is trying to achieve.
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