Project

The project is bigger than carbon.

Carbon is how we finance the first phase. The marula is how we build the economy that outlasts the carbon market. Tree planting is how we do both at once.

Save the Sand is a landscape-level financing facility for the Sabie and Sand River catchments. Three commercial entry points, one set of trees, one set of households, one catchment.

Flywheel — Brief 2
🌳
The tree
90-year horizon
🌍
Carbon
Sequestered · Credited · Financed
🍈
Marula oil
Harvest · Process · Market
🏠
Households
Income · Food · Shade
💧
The river
Soil · Flow · Life

The three entry points are not separate projects. They are the same project.

Save the Sand is a landscape-level financing facility for the Sabie and Sand River catchments. The objective is to build a regenerative bioregional economy — one where the trees that sequester carbon are the same trees that produce fruit for collection, oil for processing, and shade for households who will keep them standing long after the crediting period closes.

Running on the same trees, through the same households, across the same catchment.

  • Carbon unlocks the capital. A Verra-registered project underwrites forty years of restoration work that no community, NGO or government could finance alone.
  • Marula builds the economy. The oil chain keeps households invested in standing trees long after the carbon credits are issued.
  • Planting holds the permanence. Every tree in the ground is a tree earning in the household, a tree sequestering in the atmosphere, a tree stabilising the soil the river depends on.
One set of trees. Three revenue streams. Four generations.

Three ways in.

Each links to a dedicated sub-page. Read whichever matches the way your organisation, capital, or attention enters the landscape.
I.
🌍
Carbon
/ project / carbon
The registered Verra carbon project. VCS 5375. VM0047. CCB Gold Level. 40,000 hectares. 7.3 million net VCUs projected over the crediting period. The financial instrument that makes the whole model viable.
For carbon buyers, offtake partners, and project financiers.
Read the carbon page
II.
🍈
Marula Magic
/ project / marula-magic
The marula oil economy. Community nurseries, household fruit collection, micro-enterprise oil processing, and global offtake. The closed-loop economy the carbon project is seeding.
For patrons, product buyers, and partners investing in community enterprise.
Read the marula page
III.
🌱
Tree Planting
/ project / tree-planting
Sponsor a tree. Support a nursery. Become a tree custodian. The ground-level activation — the thing that makes every other part of the project real.
For individuals, conservation bodies, and community members who want to plant.
Read the planting page

One closed loop. Four moves, each financing the next.

01
Carbon finances
Carbon prepurchases fund nurseries, tree planting, household payments, and monitoring for the forty-year horizon.
02
Trees go in
Community nurseries produce. Households plant. Custodians tend. The carbon project becomes real landscape.
03
Marula earns
By year seven, the oil economy is flowing.
Households earn directly from the trees they planted.
04
Permanence holds
Standing trees are worth more than cleared ground. The carbon stays. The river recovers. The loop closes.

Different capital. Different mandates. One landscape.