Hornbill Dispatch #11 | Death by a thousand cuts
On missed newsletters, scaling forests, and remembering why we started.
Dear friends,
It’s been a while. Too long, actually. We’ve been busy on the ground - wading through devil’s thorn, dodging errant mosquitoes, sitting with farmers and sipping excruciatingly sweet chai - and somewhere along the way, we stopped writing. Not because there wasn’t anything to say. But because every time we sat down to write, another fire needed putting out - sometimes literally, often emotionally, and almost always urgently.
So we’re moving to Substack - partly to make it easier for you to find us. But mostly to remind ourselves that even in the chaos, we have to keep telling the story.
The story of climate change isn’t one of constant headlines anyways. It’s a kind of “slow violence” - a steady unraveling. Death by a thousand cuts. Some days, it’s animals collapsing from heat stress. Other days, it’s yet another infrastructure project swallowing one of India’s few remaining old-growth forests. And sometimes, it’s just driving through town after town with no trees, no shade, and wondering: how did we let this become normal?
Why doesn’t the sheer scale of loss - of lives, trees, animals, futures - provoke more outrage, more heartbreak, more action? Why does something so devastating to us feel, at times, so abstract to others?
Maybe that’s part of our work we need to take more seriously. Not just fundraising to roll out our programs on the ground, but also finding better ways to communicate what’s at stake. To tell stories that certainly cut through our fatigue, and hopefully will cut through somebody else’s as well.
Since our last letter in August 2022 (yes, it was that long ago!), a lot has changed. We’ve more than quadrupled in size. We now work across five States in India (as opposed to just the one in 2022). Our tech is getting really good (that needs its own separate Substack post). And we’re making some bold internal shifts - because we want to grow without burning out or turning on each other. Turns out, scaling an organisation is not unlike growing a forest: it takes intention, spacing, sunlight, and patience.
Also - hi again! I came back to F4F full-time earlier this year after nearly two years in a part-time advisor role. This felt like the moment. Over that time, I had the privilege of proudly watching my co-founders and the early team build something truly transformative, and surprisingly sturdy.
Now, the model is holding up. The field teams are moving fast. The farmers are with us. And we’re at an inflection point where it’s not just us saying the model works - we’re collaborating with researchers and peer organisations to test and validate that.
The next chapter is about scaling - without compromising quality, losing our grounding in the field, or missing the chance to shape what a truly resilient, farmer-first, regenerative, and climate change-resilient land restoration model looks like for the long haul. One that doesn’t just remain a case study, but lasts on the land.
We’re here. Still occasionally chaotic. Still mostly hopeful.
- Arti Dhar (Co-Founder, Farmers for Forests)
From Joining Us, To Building with Us
Aditya Avinashe joined F4F as Chief Operations Officer in 2023 , and it didn’t take long for us to realise we’d lucked out. He brought calm to chaos, built systems with soul, and poured himself fully into the work. So after 1.5 years of being absolutely indispensable, it only made sense to make it official: he’s now a F4F co-founder! Oh, and somewhere along the way, he also became an Acumen Fellow. No big deal!
New Builders for the Next Chapter
Meet the new folks helping steer this slightly wild ship - our senior management team who’ve joined us over the past 1 year. We’re growing fast, and so is our leadership bench (with more to come!).
Star Farmer Event
In January, we hosted our very first F4F Farmer Event - a gathering of over 100 farmers, some already part of our program, others curious. Our chief guest was Mr. Satyajit Bhatkal, CEO of Paani Foundation (F4F’s partner organisation). We came together to talk about trees, water and soil, yes, but most importantly to celebrate our “star farmers”- the ones who didn’t just plant trees, but cared for them like family, and became organic evangelists of F4F in their communities. It was a joyful and sentimental experience.
We organised this event not just to felicitate, but to say clearly: land stewardship deserves public respect and celebration - so that the next generation sees it as work worth aspiring to.
Medals, Mics, Mild Panic…
Arti pitched our hearts out at Fast Forward’s Demo Day in San Francisco (with fancy slides and only minor existential dread).
Krutika became a Mulago Fellow (Henry Arnhold Fellow) and got F4F into the Mulago portfolio while she was at it.
Aditya Avinashe pitched F4F at the India Fundraising Conference 2025, organized by India Leaders for Social Sector (ILSS) - and won!
By the Numbers (Because Feelings Need Data)
Since we’ve started, we’ve worked on transitioning nearly 5000 acres of land into agroforestry and forestry.
We’ve planted nearly 2 million trees - and yes, they’re doing well (turns out, obsessing over aftercare works).
Through our various programs, we’re working with nearly 25,000 farmers.
We’re active in five states (and counting).
We have 25,000 acres already in our pipeline to transition to agroforestry.
Meanwhile, in Elephant Country…
Most people know us for planting trees. Fewer know that some of our most important work is making sure those trees don’t get trampled - literally. In Gadchiroli in eastern Maharashtra (where we have been working for the last few years on forest protection and forest restoration), elephants have returned after centuries - wandering in from the neighbouring state of Chhattisgarh in search of food and forest. It’s a shift in the landscape - awe inspiring, yes, but also risky to communities whose homes and crops might lie in the elephants’ paths.
So we started The Elephant Project. It's quiet, long-term work - talking to people, using thermal drones to track elephant movements at night (in partnership with the Forest Department), setting up early warning systems, and reminding people that elephants don’t necessarily have to be enemies.
The good folks at The Grasslands Trust, along with the support of Center for Wildlife Studies and Pernod Ricard India Foundation, made a mini documentary called ‘Crossing Paths: The Elephants of Eastern Maharashtra’, that profiles the important work happening on the ground. We really encourage you to watch it!
From Sapling to…Slightly Bigger Sapling
We recently closed hiring for over 30 new full-time team members - which means we’ve officially crossed the 100-person mark (yes, we’re also in shock). As we grow, we’re learning how to make the slow, slightly awkward transition from scrappy startup to something more… grown-up-ish.
Last month, we brought the whole team together for an off-site. We danced. We balanced cups on our heads. We played cricket with our own rules. And we finally put faces to names we mostly knew through Whatsapp threads.
Regional team loyalties ran deep, but so did pride in our collective work - no matter where it’s rooted. We also spent time reflecting on which of our organisational values we truly live by, which ones need work, and what we hope to build together this year.
If words aren’t your thing - we made a little video (with music, of course).
If you made it this far - thank you. We promise not to ghost you again (or at least not for too long).
Until next time,
Team F4F
If you’d like to keep hearing from us, hit the Subscribe button - it’s free, we won’t spam you, and we promise to send only the good stuff (plus the occasional story about how our team insists on naming every buffalo, cat, and squirrel they meet in the field).
Thanks for the communication.
However, I yet quite unclear in my mind about what exactly the foundation does and how it operates.
If you could bring in some clarity on this through a return Email, I shall be grateful.
Aah this makes me so happy! congratulations on all the wins, so excited to see where this goes :)