Ponterra Partners With Arbor Day Foundation to Accelerate Large-Scale High Integrity Reforestation in Mexico

NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESS Newswire / April 6, 2026 / Ponterra today announced a new project finance loan and partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation, the world’s largest nonprofit organisation dedicated to planting trees. The loan represents one of the first project finance investments from the Arbor Day Foundation’s mission driven investment initiative, the Arbor Day Impact Fund.

The loan provided by the Arbor Day Impact Fund will support early-stage operations at Ponterra’s latest project, La Esperanza, the largest Afforestation, Reforestation, and Revegetation (ARR) project in Mexico. Designed to scale to over 100,000 Ha, La Esperanza restores degraded agricultural and idle lands into biodiverse native forest, providing a financially and environmentally sustainable income for local community members.

“Arbor Day’s unique combination of deep carbon market experience and unparalleled reputation make them ideal partners for Ponterra as we bring La Esperanza to market. We applaud the Foundation for stepping up to provide impact capital to projects when they need it most and look forward to working together to unlock nature-based solutions at scale,” saidLeigh Madeira, Head of Investments, Ponterra.

“Early-stage reforestation projects often face a critical gap between planting trees and securing long-term financial sustainability. We want to close that gap by pairing low-cost capital with market access. This partnership with Ponterra demonstrates a shared commitment to building forestry projects that deliver positive environmental and social outcomes,” saidPete Davis, Managing Director of the Arbor Day Impact Fund.

For the initial 10,000 Ha, Ponterra will plant more than 6 million trees from more than 50 different native species. The project will create over 200 formal jobs, strengthening community prosperity through employment, skills training, and revenue-sharing. As a result, La Esperanza is forecast to deliver over $160 million in community benefits in the next 40 years.

The Arbor Day Impact Fund was created to fill a critical gap in early-stage finance for nature-based solutions. While demand for high quality reforestation is rising, few financing mechanisms exist that can deploy mission-aligned capital into the early stage of project development, when it is needed the most yet hardest to secure. Through the Arbor Day Impact Fund, the Arbor Day Foundation addresses this gap by providing impact-first, catalytic debt and equity investments that prioritise measurable environmental outcomes and demonstrate that reforestation projects can be financed responsibly and at scale.

Alongside the loan, Ponterra and the Arbor Day Foundation have established a partnership that enables the Foundation and its corporate partners to claim tree planting rights from project activities at La Esperanza as part of their own reforestation commitments. The Arbor Day Foundation will also make La Esperanza available to its vast network of corporates for offtake and upfront financing, giving them access to tree planting claims and carbon credits from one of Latin America’s most ambitious reforestation projects.

Since 1972, the Arbor Day Foundation has planted over 500 million trees and works with corporate partners to integrate tree planting into sustainability strategies. The Foundation already partners with project developers globally, including Taking Root in Nicaragua, and GreenTrees in the Mississippi River Valley, to connect corporate demand for high-integrity reforestation with credible, scalable projects. The partnership with Ponterra expands this portfolio into Mexico and adds a large-scale native species restoration project with both carbon and biodiversity outcomes.

The transaction follows Ponterra’s recent announcement of a first-of-a-kind biodiversity credit-backed loan from Fondo Nimbus, and reinforces growing investor confidence in Ponterra’s integrated approach to carbon, biodiversity, and community impact. Together, these transactions demonstrate that diverse sources of capital, from impact-first philanthropic finance to outcomes-based investment, can be mobilised into large-scale restoration when underpinned by operational excellence, high integrity project design, and deep community engagement.

About Ponterra

Ponterra is a commercial developer and operator of biodiversity-rich reforestation projects with the mission to restore nature at scale. Ponterra develops high-quality carbon projects that sequester carbon, restore biodiversity, and uplift rural communities through a vertically integrated model that blends ecology, operations, finance, and technology. Ponterra’s portfolio includes large-scale projects in Panama and Mexico, as well as pioneering biodiversity credits as the only ARR project developer selected for Verra’s SD VISta Nature Credit pilot program. For more information, please visit https://ponterra.eco/.

About the Arbor Day Foundation

The Arbor Day Foundation is a global nonprofit inspiring people to plant, nurture, and celebrate trees. They foster a growing community of more than 1 million leaders, innovators, planters, and supporters united by their bold belief that a more hopeful future can be shaped through the power of trees. For more than 50 years, they’ve answered critical need with action, planting more than half a billion trees alongside their partners.

And this is only the beginning.

The Arbor Day Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit pursuing a future where all life flourishes through the power of trees. Learn more at arborday.org.

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Contact Info:
Spokesperson: Arbor Day Foundation
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SOURCE: Arbor Day Foundation

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