Greenpop: Turning Tree-Planting Festivals Into a Forest Restoration Movement

Founded in Cape Town in 2010 by Misha and Lauren Teasdale and Jeremy Hewitt, Greenpop combines large-scale reforestation with urban greening and hands-on environmental education. Its Forest for Life programme is restoring degraded land at sites including the Platbos indigenous forest reserve, while its Urban Greening projects have planted over 26,000 trees and built 25 gardens at schools and community spaces across the Cape Flats. The organisation has now planted more than 257,000 trees in total, on its way to a target of 500,000 by 2025 and a million by 2030, and has directly engaged more than 100,000 people through tree-planting festivals, workshops and school visits. Greenpop treats each tree as part of a broader push to reconnect under-greened communities with nature, not just a number on a counter.