The Regenesis Project is a beautiful 17 hectare mountainous property located in the tropical island of Bohol, Philippines, one of the most popular travel destinations in the archipelago. The restoration site is uniquely situated in the interior highlands with unparalleled 270 degree views of the world famous Chocolate Hills, rural landscapes, and a breathtaking sea of clouds at sunrise, visible when one is lucky enough. A 2.2 hectare communal irrigation dam within the property forms a unique inland water reservoir. Historically, the majority of the island had a tropical forest cover. However decades of agricultural expansion, slash and burn farming, and logging have left only 27% of its natural forests intact. Within the restoration area, cattle grazing, annual burning of grasses during the dry season, and lack of seed sources or forest patches at high elevation have prevented any natural regeneration or rewilding to take place. The Regenesis Project aims to restore the land to enable it to ecologically evolve over time through fire management, water capture and storage through keyline design, establishment of much needed microclimates and soil conditions to support wild afforestation, while also exploring syntropic food forestry, bamboo production, SRI rice production, vetiver applications, and many more activities, all within the larger framework of moving the local communities towards regenerative ways of living.

Regenesis operates based on holistic regenerative development framework across multiple scales and sectors to create maximum impact in regenerating degraded ecosystems, creating viable livelihoods for communities, sustaining local enterprises, supporting vernacular craftsmanship, and enriching regional cultures. Their vision is to become the centre for regeneration in the Philippines and eventually in the South East Asian region and the team is multiplying their efforts to reach further and more communities and render greater impact – by creating training programs to train diverse groups of people in local communities, committed youth leaders, and enthusiastic practitioners; and through influencing policy making across multiple agencies. They aim to achieve ground zero on site, testing different restoration strategies suitable to the region so they can be successfully replicated on other sites. Their approach to achieving ground zero includes transitioning from low-impact or conservation ecotourism to POSITIVE-impact tourism; growing a diverse variety of food products in a way that increases land fertility and productivity and improves climate resilience over time; partnering with local businesses to transition towards regenerative entrepreneurship, producing high quality products that replenish natural resources while creating sustainable livelihoods; creating human habitats that integrate seamlessly with the site’s ecology; building green schools and forest schools to offer high quality, holistic education to local children, as well as partnering with local universities to extend education out into the land; and creating spaces for people to find healing and reconnection through nature, meaningful contribution, and restored human-land relationships. These activities will help the project become sustainable in the long term, so that they can invest in restoring even more land and ecosystems, or even provide seed money to local farmers and small businesses who want to pursue this path, thus creating a ripple effect of healing and regeneration throughout the entire region.