Subtropical Thicket Restoration — Carbon-Finance-Backed Spekboom Recovery in South Africa's Karoo

South Africa's Subtropical Thicket Restoration Programme began in 2004 with about $8 million of government investment to replant spekboom (Portulacaria afra), a hardy succulent that once formed dense thicket across the semi-arid Eastern Cape before over a century of goat overgrazing stripped it bare. Spekboom stores carbon in its leaves, roots and surrounding soil, and UNEP credits thicket restoration with 'extremely high' biodiversity benefits.

Restoration has accelerated sharply since 2023: government-led planting grew from about 2,000 to roughly 30,000 hectares, private developers added a further 25,000 hectares, and more than 60 entities now work across an estimated 800,000 hectares. In 2024 the World Bank structured a 14-year outcome bond funding a 10,000-hectare first phase (with a planned expansion to 50,000 hectares), backed by GenZero, Mirova, Rubicon Carbon and Bregal Sphere and placed by BNP Paribas, with Amazon committing to buy carbon removal units at a fixed price over multiple decades.

In December 2025 the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration named the programme a World Restoration Flagship, citing a UNEP estimate that full thicket revival could sequester up to 8 million tonnes of CO2 annually — comparable to about 20 gas-fired power plants — with a 2030 transformation target of 800,000 hectares. Developers project roughly $500 million could flow to local farming communities over 40 years through wages, land rental, carbon-credit revenue sharing and small-business development.

Independent reporting is candid about the strain of rapid scale-up: researcher Jan Vlok warns some companies plant at 100% density (which he calls 'forestation' rather than restoration, against a recommended 70–80% or lower), projects reportedly operate in silos with little shared protocol, and a 2026 Mongabay investigation found the sector's investment and accounting practices run on 'closed books', difficult for outsiders to verify.