GEN Ukraine is a grassroots network of over 55 ecovillages, family farms, and intentional communities across the country, serving as the Ukrainian branch of the Global Ecovillage Network with roots in local resilience, mutual aid, and ecological regeneration. The network has planted 4,000 trees and restored 300+ hectares of degraded land across 11 regions since the start of the war, while focusing on social regeneration through zero waste practices and transforming former schools into community education hubs for eco tourism and environmental education. The initiative restores war-affected land and communities through tree planting, rainwater harvesting, biodiversity monitoring, and local climate hubs, combining traditional knowledge with regenerative finance tools to build resilience and food security.
GainForest is a decentralized science non-profit developing advanced and equitable nature tech to support global conservation. The organization bridges cutting-edge AI with Indigenous wisdom, creating a global system where conservation is transparent, equitable, and scalable. GainForest's mission is to reverse global deforestation by catalyzing impactful community-based nature conservation and incentivizing frictionless sustainable financing through trust-enhancing technology. The organization uses machine learning-based impact evaluators that leverage satellite and drone imagery to detect ecological changes, allowing communities to unlock payments from a decentralized fund when verified milestones are achieved.
Project story
For more than 20 years, our ecovillage network in Ukraine has been restoring degraded land, planting trees, building water systems, and creating communities around regenerative living. After the full-scale war began, this work stopped being only an ecological vision — it became part of a broader resilience strategy for both people and landscapes.
Many of our communities are located in regions where multiple crises now overlap at the same time. The frontline increasingly runs through territories already affected by soil erosion, drought, biodiversity loss, and accelerating desertification processes. Climate change is making these pressures stronger each year, expanding the radius of degraded landscapes far beyond the immediate war zone.
We have seen how fragile centralized systems can become under these combined pressures. At the same time, we have also seen how local communities can regenerate land, restore ecosystems, and rebuild resilience from the ground up.
Our project connects ecological restoration with community resilience. Across our ecovillage network, we are restoring soils, planting trees, improving water retention, supporting regenerative food-growing systems, and developing decentralized solar energy infrastructure for shared spaces and vulnerable families.
We combine low-tech ecological practices with emerging coordination tools. Through partnerships with regenerative and Web3 platforms, we are beginning to measure ecological impact, biodiversity restoration, renewable energy generation, and community stewardship activities across multiple locations.
Over the next year, we plan to expand restoration work across several ecovillage sites in Ukraine: improving degraded soils, supporting local stewardship initiatives, strengthening renewable energy systems, and helping communities adapt to both climate instability and wartime conditions.
This work is carried by local residents, volunteers, ecovillages, environmental practitioners, and grassroots community leaders working together to regenerate both land and social connection.
Project updates
Team
Regenerating Land and Community Resilience in Ukraine
GEN Ukraine is a grassroots network of over 55 ecovillages, family farms, and intentional communities across the country, serving as the Ukrainian branch of the Global Ecovillage Network with roots in local resilience, mutual aid, and ecological regeneration. The network has planted 4,000 trees and restored 300+ hectares of degraded land across 11 regions since the start of the war, while focusing on social regeneration through zero waste practices and transforming former schools into community education hubs for eco tourism and environmental education. The initiative restores war-affected land and communities through tree planting, rainwater harvesting, biodiversity monitoring, and local climate hubs, combining traditional knowledge with regenerative finance tools to build resilience and food security.
GainForest is a decentralized science non-profit developing advanced and equitable nature tech to support global conservation. The organization bridges cutting-edge AI with Indigenous wisdom, creating a global system where conservation is transparent, equitable, and scalable. GainForest's mission is to reverse global deforestation by catalyzing impactful community-based nature conservation and incentivizing frictionless sustainable financing through trust-enhancing technology. The organization uses machine learning-based impact evaluators that leverage satellite and drone imagery to detect ecological changes, allowing communities to unlock payments from a decentralized fund when verified milestones are achieved.
Project story
For more than 20 years, our ecovillage network in Ukraine has been restoring degraded land, planting trees, building water systems, and creating communities around regenerative living. After the full-scale war began, this work stopped being only an ecological vision — it became part of a broader resilience strategy for both people and landscapes.
Many of our communities are located in regions where multiple crises now overlap at the same time. The frontline increasingly runs through territories already affected by soil erosion, drought, biodiversity loss, and accelerating desertification processes. Climate change is making these pressures stronger each year, expanding the radius of degraded landscapes far beyond the immediate war zone.
We have seen how fragile centralized systems can become under these combined pressures. At the same time, we have also seen how local communities can regenerate land, restore ecosystems, and rebuild resilience from the ground up.
Our project connects ecological restoration with community resilience. Across our ecovillage network, we are restoring soils, planting trees, improving water retention, supporting regenerative food-growing systems, and developing decentralized solar energy infrastructure for shared spaces and vulnerable families.
We combine low-tech ecological practices with emerging coordination tools. Through partnerships with regenerative and Web3 platforms, we are beginning to measure ecological impact, biodiversity restoration, renewable energy generation, and community stewardship activities across multiple locations.
Over the next year, we plan to expand restoration work across several ecovillage sites in Ukraine: improving degraded soils, supporting local stewardship initiatives, strengthening renewable energy systems, and helping communities adapt to both climate instability and wartime conditions.
This work is carried by local residents, volunteers, ecovillages, environmental practitioners, and grassroots community leaders working together to regenerate both land and social connection.
Project updates
Team
Location
Ukraine
Round 3
Jul 1-21, 2026
Supporting community-led nature projects around the world.
Matching funds provided by
