When a merchant installs GoodAPI and sets up tree planting for their Shopify store, one question comes up more often than you might expect: Kenya or Madagascar?
Both are real reforestation projects. Both are verified through Veritree, GoodAPI’s reforestation partner, with geolocated trees tracked through their critical first years. Both are places where the forests genuinely need help. But they are different ecosystems solving different problems, and the choice you make says something specific about your brand.
This post explains what each project actually does on the ground, what kind of environmental story it tells, and which one is the better fit depending on what your customers care about.
The Kenya Project: Blue Carbon on the East African Coast
Kenya’s mangrove forests grow where the Indian Ocean meets the land. The trees are tangled, salt-tolerant, and peculiar-looking — their roots arch out of shallow tidal water like stilts. They are also some of the most ecologically productive forests on the planet.
Kenya has 60,000+ hectares of coastal mangrove forest, stretching from Lamu in the north down to Kwale County in the south. Over the past 50 years, the country has lost roughly half of that coverage to coastal development, unsustainable timber harvesting, and aquaculture expansion. The loss continues at around 0.7% per year.
Why Mangroves Are Different
The term for what mangroves store is “blue carbon” — carbon captured by coastal and marine ecosystems rather than terrestrial forests. The numbers involved are striking.
This is why mangrove restoration has become one of the highest-value plays in the carbon world. Per hectare of forest restored, the climate benefit is hard to beat.
Beyond carbon, Kenya’s mangroves are a livelihood issue. The forests support around 800,000 artisanal coastal fishers by acting as fish nurseries. Juvenile fish shelter in the root systems before moving into open water. When mangroves disappear, fish populations decline and coastal communities lose a primary food source. In Lamu County alone, mangroves contribute close to $85 million per year to the regional economy.
How the Kenya Project Works
GoodAPI’s reforestation partner Veritree works with EarthLungs Reforestation Foundation on the Kenya project, covering more than 3,200 hectares combined across Kenya and Tanzania. Local women’s groups and youth cooperatives run the seedling nurseries and planting crews. Workers receive long-term employment and health insurance as part of the project structure, not just casual day wages.
Satellite imagery and AI-assisted monitoring track survival rates through the first five years of growth — the window when establishment risk is highest. Every tree has a GPS coordinate and a planting record.
The Madagascar Project: Biodiversity at the Brink
Madagascar is a different kind of crisis.
The island split from mainland Africa around 160 million years ago and evolved in near-complete isolation. The result is a place where roughly 90% of wildlife exists nowhere else on Earth . Around 13,000 plant species are endemic to the island. Lemurs, found only in Madagascar wild, occupy the ecological niches that primates fill elsewhere. Half of all chameleon species on Earth live here. This biodiversity is not just remarkable on paper — it represents millions of years of evolutionary history that cannot be replicated or recovered once lost.
And the forest is collapsing.
Slash-and-burn agriculture, illegal logging, and charcoal production are the primary drivers. The economic pressures that push communities toward forest destruction are compounding, not easing.
The IUCN classifies 96.3% of Madagascar’s 113 known lemur species as threatened with extinction — largely because of habitat loss. These are not edge-case species. The entire lemur family, one of the most distinctive mammal groups in the world, is at risk within a generation.
How the Madagascar Project Works
Veritree’s Madagascar work focuses on native species reforestation in degraded landscapes, including mangrove restoration along the northwest coastline. The approach is community-based: local people are trained and employed as nursery workers, planters, and forest monitors, creating a financial incentive to protect the forests long-term rather than extract from them.
Each tree is geolocated and assigned to a local farmer in Veritree’s tracking system. Species selection follows ecological planning — native varieties suited to the specific microclimate and soil conditions of each planting zone, not fast-growing exotics chosen for bulk numbers.
Side-by-Side: How the Two Projects Compare
| Factor | Kenya Mangroves | Madagascar Forests |
|---|---|---|
| Ecosystem type | Coastal mangroves (blue carbon) | Tropical rainforest + mangroves |
| Carbon per hectare | Up to 1,000 tCO2e | 150–300 tCO2e (above-ground) |
| Primary crisis | Coastal development, charcoal | Slash-and-burn, logging |
| Biodiversity hook | Coastal fisheries, marine habitat | Lemurs, endemic wildlife, 90% endemism |
| Community benefit | 800K+ coastal fishers supported | Employment in some of Madagascar's poorest regions |
| Verification | Veritree + EarthLungs, satellite monitoring | Veritree, GPS per-tree tracking |
| Story angle | Ocean, coast, fishing communities | Endangered species, lost wilderness |
Neither project is better in an absolute sense. Kenya mangroves win on carbon efficiency per hectare. Madagascar wins on biodiversity stakes and the scale of ecological emergency. Both meet Veritree’s verified reforestation standards.
Choosing the Right Story for Your Brand
The practical question for a merchant is not which project is “more important” — it is which story your customers connect with.
Here is how the stories play out in real customer-facing copy:
Kenya framing: “Every order plants a verified mangrove tree on the East African coast — restoring habitat for coastal fish, locking away blue carbon, and supporting fishing families in Lamu.”
Madagascar framing: “Every order plants a tree in Madagascar’s disappearing rainforests — protecting habitat for lemurs, restoring one of the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems, tree by tree.”
Both of these are true claims backed by verified project data. Both are specific enough to mean something. The question is which one your brand voice fits most naturally.
A third option, which a growing number of GoodAPI merchants choose, is to support both projects and let customers see the combined impact on your impact page. This works particularly well for stores with a broad sustainability positioning rather than a single cause focus.
The One Thing Both Projects Have in Common
Whatever project you choose through GoodAPI, the underlying mechanics are the same.
Trees are planted by local community workers. Each tree is geolocated. Planting data is recorded in real time through Veritree’s platform. Survival is monitored over the first several years, when trees are most at risk. Merchants get access to verified impact data they can share with customers, not just a planting certificate.
This level of transparency matters more than it did a few years ago. Sustainability claims are under scrutiny from regulators, journalists, and customers who have learned to ask harder questions. The ability to say “here is our tree, here is its GPS coordinate, here is the team that planted it” is not just good marketing. It is the foundation of a claim you can actually stand behind.
GoodAPI charges $0.43/tree with no monthly fee and a 5.0-star rating from 200+ Shopify merchants. Both the Kenya and Madagascar projects are available through the same app, with no additional setup required to switch between them.
Getting Started
If you are a Shopify merchant who wants to support verified reforestation — whether in Kenya, Madagascar, or both — the GoodAPI app is available on the Shopify App Store. Setup takes a few minutes: install the app, choose your project, and configure how many trees to plant per order.
Your customers start seeing verified impact from their very first purchase. The trees are geolocated. The data is auditable. And the forests that need it most start getting real help.
Install the GoodAPI app on Shopify and choose your first project today.
GoodAPI connects Shopify merchants with verified reforestation and plastic removal projects worldwide. All planting is tracked, geolocated, and verified through Veritree. Explore the full project portfolio at thegoodapi.com/our-projects.