News and Activities

One of the Cooperative’s objectives, and the main role of the Cooperative Committee, is to develop a carbon revenue sharing formula. Indeed, it is certainly not up to arboRise to define how these revenues will be shared among the cooperative members. This choice must be made by those most directly concerned, based on local traditions and customs. But what will these criteria be? And how should they be weighted? Should effort and merit be taken into account, or should revenues be distributed evenly? Can fate be invoked to justify certain disappointing results? Etc. Rather than discussing these criteria in the abstract, we opted for serious games, which are more effective. In concrete terms, we used pre-printed tarpaulins showing several scenarios, such as this one, where the aim was to distribute income according to the hazards suffered by landowners: Each member of the cooperative committee had 20 (symbolic) coins representing the

In December 2025, we founded the Samana Family Land Cooperative to properly manage the common good that is the new arboRise forests (see our report here), and on 1 February 2026, a new General Assembly was held to elect the cooperative’s governing bodies: In preparation for the election of the 18 members of the Cooperative Committee, each village had previously elected two representatives, one man and one woman. At the general meeting, we simply used a hat in which we placed 10 ‘Woman’ tickets and 8 ‘Man’ tickets. Each village drew a slip at random, and that is how we ended up with a Cooperative Committee made up mostly of women, all of whom are well known in their villages and therefore visible at the sub-prefecture level. —- In this regard, some circles readily express sympathy for the plight of African women. For our part, we see tangible signs of

In Samana, we also need to measure the pre-existing biomass (baseline) on a sample, as was done in Damaro in 2025. We should have taken these measurements in 2024, the year the plots were seeded. Measuring these trees two years too late means that their biomass will contain two years of growth and therefore two years of carbon that belongs to the project but that we will have to deduct (since, as we remember, the project cannot account for pre-existing carbon on the land prior to project activities). Measuring pre-existing biomass requires several steps: EcoAct calculates the sample size, performs stratification, and randomly identifies the sample plots and GPS coordinates of the measurement point on each plot. We update the standard operating procedure and train GUIDRE For each of the 40 plots, GUIDRE’s measurement teams must find the plot in the given village mark the perimeter of the 600 m²

Our reforestation project removes CO2 from the atmosphere, but what is the carbon footprint of arboRise’s activities? How much CO2 do the project’s activities emit into the atmosphere? This carbon footprint is based on the Bilan Carbone™ methodology and lists all GHG emissions from arboRise and GUIDRE activities in Switzerland and Guinea for the two regions (Linko-Damaro-Konsankoro and Samana-Diassodou-Sokourala-Koumandou) during the 30-year and 20-year certification periods, respectively. Summary of results: This carbon footprint of 1,100 t CO2e will enable the absorption of 2,400,000 t CO2e thanks to the reforestation activities carried out by arboRise and GUIDRE in two regions (Linko-Damaro-Konsankoro and Samana-Diassodou-Sokourala-Koumandou) over a period of 20 and 30 years respectively. The project’s emissions therefore represent only 0.5% of the CO2 that the project will remove from the atmosphere. Comments and potential for improvement: The travel of GUIDRE teams in the field is, of course, the main source of CO2

A historic day in the sub-prefecture of Samana on 13 December 2025: Samana’s first cooperative, bringing together the 248 farming families of Samana, was founded in the presence of local authorities. The 248 cooperative members were invited to gather at the Youth Centre in the commune’s capital. Such an event is exceptional in the region: most of the participants were very surprised to receive two good meals during the day as well as a daily allowance. The Samana authorities were invited and the sub-prefect of Samana gave a very inspiring speech, which we recorded and broadcast on local radio. The main theme of the day was to explain ‘why create this cooperative’ (to better manage the reforested plots that are the common property of all families) and to prepare for the elections of the cooperative’s governing bodies at the next general meeting in March 2026. The Samana Cooperative is already

CGC trainings follow the “train the trainer” approach. To provide immediate support to seed families and field families in each village, the project sets up a Community Management Committee. This committee is made up of 10 to 20 prominent members of the village, who are often already responsible for specific issues (women’s groups, youth, health and hygiene, etc.). In our project, the CGCs are responsible for Supporting seed families and field families. The CMC coordinates collective activities (seed collection, sowing, etc.) and organizes peer learning activities. Identifying best practices. The CGC identifies the plots of land in its village where trees have grown best and seeks to understand why, in order to recognize best practices. Disseminating best practices within the village and between villages. The CGC passes on good ideas from seed families to other seed families in the village and does the same for field families. The CGC shares good

As we have seen, manually measuring trees for verification purposes is very time-consuming. Furthermore, biomass is estimated using an allometric equation that only takes into account diameter and height. About allometric equations: Chave et al, 2005: Tree allometry and improved estimation of carbon stocks and balance in tropical forests Djomo et al, 2010 : Allometric equations for biomass estimations in Cameroon and pan moist tropical equations including biomass data from Africa Chave et al, 2014 : Improved allometric models to estimate the aboveground biomass of tropical trees  What about biomass in branches? Is it sufficiently taken into account by equations, which are often not based on forest measurements, regardless of species? Other dendrometric measurement methods exist, which generally use scanners (TLS: terrestrial laser scanner). Numerous studies show that the accuracy of the measurement and the time required are similar to manual measurements, but this equipment is very expensive (CHF 60,000). Since 2021,