About Us
We Create Accelerated Solutions
We are a team of international researchers and restoration specialists committed to the regeneration of the natural world. We are open-source and non-profit, based in Sebastopol, California. We harness the emerging technologies of aerial robotics, soil biology, and seed enhancements to scale up restoration of priority forestlands, watersheds, and habitats.
Our Mission: Large-scale Restoration of Priority Ecosystems
We represent diverse cultures and worldviews but together we share a passion for a thriving planet. We believe the survival of countless species including our own depends upon our ability to mitigate climate change and transition into a sustainable relationship with the Earth. We are committed to solutions as far-reaching as the challenges we face.
Open-Source by Design
Rainforest Rising is committed to making these protocols open-source and widely accessible. Our goal is not to gatekeep innovation, but to accelerate restoration everywhere—from small community projects to regional conservation initiatives.
We actively collaborate with:
By sharing protocols, data, and lessons learned, we aim to support a growing, connected community of practitioners working toward the same goal: functional, biodiverse ecosystems.
We have agency. We can shape the future.
Our leadership team represents diverse cultures and worldviews but together we share a passion for a thriving planet. We believe the survival of countless species including our own depends upon our ability to mitigate climate change and transition into a sustainable relationship with the Earth. We are committed to solutions as far-reaching as the challenges we face.
Linking Global Efforts
As an open-source not-for-profit company we are uniquely positioned to contribute critical field and laboratory data to SET and droneseeding knowledge banks. Many future large-scale restoration efforts will look to open sources for methodologies and resourcing. Our methods, materials, and results, all free, will empower individuals and local organizations anywhere in the world to carry out their own large-scale restoration efforts.
Meet our founder, Alaric
If you’ve read this far, you’re probably here for some of the same reasons I am: a desire to help the planet, save endangered species, and save ourselves.
To meet the unprecedented challenges we face, our responses must be bold enough to restore habitats, watersheds, and ecosystems faster than they’re being destroyed. Given that the scope of destruction is a staggering 40 million trees a day, closing that gap will require an equally epic effort.
My family is originally from El Salvador, a country whose tropical forests no longer exist. But my Indigenous ancestors knew, as I do today, that the Earth is still our Mother. To me she is sacred. Everything I have is made of Her – my body, the air I breathe, food I eat, my clothes, my phone, my roof, all the people I know – everything. That is why I founded Rainforest Rising: to give back to her.
Alaric Balibrera
Inspired by the transformative potential of drone-based direct seeding, Alaric has spent the past decade developing and refining the tools, methods, and partnerships needed to turn this vision into practical, scalable restoration on the ground.
