Our story
“A living tree must be worth more than a felled tree.”
Racines de France® was born from an observation: our economic model does not reward what keeps us alive.
A forest, living soil, a river provide essential services: clean air and water, stored carbon, working biodiversity, fertile land. Yet their value appears in no account. What pays is producing fast, even if it means exhausting what makes production possible.
The consequences are in front of us: dying forests, eroding soils, droughts, wildfires. Planting is not enough. We need to change the way we produce, in forests as well as on farmland, and make regeneration profitable.
This is what we are building: projects that produce and regenerate at the same time, whose results are measured, certified and then financed by businesses.
Our model at a glance
A single project produces, restores and is financed by the results it achieves.
Produce
The plot produces: timber, fruit, crops.
Regenerate
Practices rebuild carbon, water, soil and biodiversity.
Measure
The site is monitored in the field, year after year.
Certify
The results are certified by a third party.
Finance
Businesses acquire the credits generated by these results.
And the loop closes: the sale of credits finances the transition of farmers and foresters, and makes it possible to launch new projects.
Key milestones
From the first forest to certification on four dimensions.
A financier becomes a forester
Yann Fortunato leaves finance to devote himself to forests, with one conviction: a living tree must be worth more than a felled tree.
Two sites, two demonstration sites
Acquisition of Les Arches Castriotes, a former exhausted vineyard in Castries (Hérault), and of Montignac Forest in Chaudes-Aigues (Cantal). They become our proving grounds.
Rethinking a forest
In Montignac, bark beetles devastate the monoculture planted in the 1960s. The forest is entirely redesigned as a mosaic of mixed species, more resilient to pests and drought.
Measuring and opening up the sites
Instrumented monitoring is deployed in Montignac: sensors, camera traps, acoustic recorders. At Les Arches, the Ceïba Foundation joins the project and holds its annual gala there.
A world first
Our two demonstration sites obtain Nature Positive certification on four dimensions at once: carbon, water, soil and biodiversity. According to Bloomlabs, a world first.
The model gains recognition
Talks at EU Green Week and the Mission Soil Investment Forum in Brussels, invitation to Bharat Innovates in Nice. At Les Arches, the Ceïba Foundation gala raises €128,000 for the Castries agroforestry project.
From Castries to the COPs
Racines de France® speaks at the COP17 on desertification in Ulaanbaatar, continues the discussions at the COP17 on biodiversity in Yerevan, then welcomes a Mongolian delegation to Les Arches Castriotes.
Our latest projects
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