Planting the tree isn’t the success. Keeping it alive is.

Planting the Tree Isn’t the Success. Keeping It Alive Is.

A new tree goes into the ground. A photograph is taken. Another number is added to the total.

Around the world, cities are planting millions of trees in response to climate change. Planting targets make headlines, and totals are easy to share. But a total tells us very little about what happens next. How many of those trees survive? How many make it through drought, heat, neglect and changing conditions?

This matters because only a living tree can do its work. A surviving tree cools streets, holds water in the soil and shelters wildlife. A sapling that dies in its first summer delivers none of that.

Are we celebrating the wrong moment?

Conventional monoculture planting often sees survival rates of 20 to 30%. That means hundreds of thousands of our trees are not simply in the ground. They are establishing, growing and becoming part of living ecosystems in cities around the world.

SUGi measures success differently. We count the trees that live.

Planting is only the first step. Our SUGi Forest Makers and SUGi Forest Keepers maintain each forest through its early years, watering, weeding and monitoring growth until the forest becomes self-sustaining. Our first pocket forest, planted in Beirut in 2019, now sustains itself entirely.

Survival also depends on people. When a school or a neighbourhood plants a forest together, they have a reason to protect it. Our forests now serve as outdoor classrooms in more than 150 schools, where students learn from the trees they planted themselves.

Real progress is measured in the years that follow planting day. A tree planted today is only a promise. A tree that survives is progress.

So perhaps it is time to change the question. Instead of asking, “How many trees did we plant?” we should be asking, “How many are still alive?