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Restor founder Tom Crowther
Protect
& Restore Nature
2021 Finalist

Restor

Area of Impact:
Global
Nominated by:

Restoring nature is challenging and can take many years to succeed. Restor’s online platform increases transparency around ecosystem restoration efforts.

Their Story

Regenerating forests. Protecting wetlands. Rewilding grasslands. All over the world, people are striving to restore and conserve local ecosystems. 

Increasing transparency around ecosystem restoration efforts fosters collaboration, peer-to-peer learning, and trust, accelerating success and driving additional investment. That’s why Dr. Thomas Crowther founded Restor, an online platform for everyone that’s pledged to conserve, protect, sustainably manage, and restore ecosystems. 

Restor is like a Google Maps for nature. It connects nature champions with ecological data and monitoring tools, and builds networks between project implementers, funders, and the public. For the first time, major scientific datasets are at the fingertips of the champions working to restore nature, helping local knowledge fuel global change.     

From wetland conservation to agroforestry to neighbourhood tree planting, Restor has already given a boost to thousands of green projects of all sizes. Since launching in 2021, it has brought together more than 125,000 restoration and conservation sites worldwide. And it is free for anyone to sign up.     

Since being named an Earthshot Prize 2021 Finalist, Restor has grown its team from 10 to 33 and will soon launch a new suite of platform features based on feedback from thousands of users.  

A partnership with 2021 Earthshot Prize Winner Costa Rica promises to deliver greater transparency to the country’s conservation and restoration efforts. Details of Costa Rica’s payment program for ecosystem services projects will be published on Restor, making their commitments on forest loss and recovery traceable and accountable. The partnership has opened the door for similar conversations with two other South American countries. 

Their impact so far

Since becoming a Finalist in 2021, Restor has continued to boost thousands of green projects globally.

Funding

Through The Earthshot Prize, Restor was introduced to Global Alliance Founding Partner Coleman Family Ventures, resulting in a $1.2m (£972,000) grant to grow their platform.

Key Milestones

Since becoming a Finalist, Restor has grown its team and launched version two of its platform. They also launched a new collaboration with FAO, where Restor data will feed into country dashboards to support with progress reporting.

Connections Made

Through The Earthshot Prize, Restor partnered with fellow 2021 Finalist Costa Rica to track over 5,000 restoration and conservation projects, making it the first nation to publicly showcase its restoration and conservation projects on Restor’s platform.

To increase transparency and reduce the time and costs associated with project monitoring, Restor is piloting an AI model that identifies trees in photos taken by drones. In October and November 2023, more than 150 Bloomberg employees worked with them to improve the algorithm through a ‘Tag Trees’ citizen science project. Bloomberg is also providing support to Restor to replicate and expand the project in 2024.

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Other 2021 Protect & Restore Nature Finalists

The Earthshot Prize