At ClimateForce, our mission goes beyond planting trees - we are committed to developing models for scalable, economically viable rainforest restoration. A key part of that journey is understanding the true cost of restoration work.

Through detailed cost tracking and iterative learning across multiple trial phases, we’ve generated some of the most in-depth insights yet into what it takes to regenerate a tropical rainforest - and how to do it smarter and more affordably over time.

Capturing the Real Costs

Our cost analysis focused on recurring operational expenses, including:

Fuel consumption, calculated at a standard diesel price of AUD $2.00 per litre
Organic herbicide inputs, using bulk pricing for ACO-approved products
Labour, tracked using field task durations and wage rates

We intentionally excluded capital expenses like equipment purchase and infrastructure, for now, to focus on the ongoing costs that restoration projects most often encounter.

How Costs Changed Across Trials

Initial Trial Phases: Learning by Doing

In Plant Out 1, costs were relatively modest as activities were delayed and input costs were minimal.

In contrast, Plant Out 2 had a front-loaded cost curve in the first month and maintained high expenditure due to intensive early interventions. While expensive, this phase acted as a testing ground for innovation, providing valuable data on what works - and what doesn’t.

Plant Out 3: Adaptive Management in Action

By the time of Plant Out 3, our team had applied key lessons:

Streamlined labour practices
More strategic weed management
Optimised mulch application

The result? Costs stabilised during maintenance periods, and overall expenditure fell significantly. Plant Out 3 showed how careful planning and data-driven adjustments can lead to more predictable and cost-effective restoration outcomes.

The Power of Iterative Improvement

**Figure 1.** *Monthly distribution of total costs per trial over the first year of rainforest restoration.* Box plots show the spread of monthly total costs (AUD) for Trials 1–19, including extrapolated data for incomplete records in Trials 13–19 (post month 8).

Across 19 trials, three clear operational phases emerged (within their first year of implementation):

Trials 1–6: The Foundation Phase
Median Monthly Costs ~$300–500
Consistent standardised practises

Trials 7–12: The Experimental Phase
Volatile, high costs ($900–$2,500+ per month)
Trial-and-error approach to weed control and inputs

Trials 13–19: The Optimisation Phase (Plant Out 3)
Median Monthly Costs below $600
Design and implementation efficiencies through learnings

This extraordinary improvement (p < 0.001) demonstrates the power of adaptive management, where each planting phase informs refinements to reduce waste and enhance workforce efficiency.

What We Have Learned So Far

Labour is King
Labour accounted for 85–90% of total costs. This finding makes one thing clear: future cost reductions must focus on optimising workforce deployment.

Inputs Have Minimal Impact on Budget
Organic herbicides and fuel—often cited as budget concerns—actually contributed a relatively small proportion of total costs. This reframes the conversation: restoration economics is driven far more by people and processes than by materials.

Strategic Planning Pays Off
The flattened cost curve of Plant Out 3 proved that smarter scheduling, reduced labour time per tree, and optimised task sequencing can dramatically cut costs—without compromising planting density or ecological outcomes. By designing operations around ecological rhythms and field logistics, we’re building a model that is both ecologically sound and economically smart.

Building a Blueprint for Scalable, Climate-Resilient Restoration

The ClimateForce trials show that restoration costs are not fixed - they can be reduced through continuous improvement. Our next steps include:

Standardising survival-adjusted cost metrics
Integrating real-time monitoring systems to trigger proactive adjustments
Developing labour scheduling models to optimise workforce allocation across seasonal cycles
Integrating capital expenses into overall regeneration cost models

Together, these components will help create a climate-resilient, adaptive, and economically grounded approach to restoration - exactly what’s needed to scale rainforest regeneration globally under the pressure of climate change.

The Takeaway: Efficiency + Ecology = Regeneration at Scale

The journey from high-cost, high-variability interventions to lean, repeatable systems marks an exciting frontier in ecological restoration.

We now have evidence that cost-effective rainforest regeneration is possible—and that it can be organic, adaptive, and climate-resilient. Each trial, each tree, each dataset contributes to building a model that others around the world can follow.

As we expand our efforts, we remain focused on one goal: making sure every dollar and every hour contributes meaningfully to the restoration of our planet’s most vital ecosystems.