Our Story

The Beginning of OpenForests

This is a story of shared purpose. A journey sparked by frustration, built on friendship, and driven by a common dream: to transform how we care for forests. It’s a story of struggles, not-so-funny failures, and meaningful learnings. And it’s the story of OpenForests — and why we believe that regenerative forest projects deserve the systems and support to scale.

We all wanted to change the world… and this time, we didn’t stop the next morning.

That late-night kitchen conversation between Stefan, Patrick, and Alexander wasn’t the first time any of us dreamed of changing the world. But it was the first time we acted on it.

Over tea and talk, we shared a growing discomfort with how business-as-usual was destroying ecosystems and undermining justice. That night, something clicked. We visualized the fragility of the world we depend on — and we knew we couldn’t go back to normal the next day.

This time, we didn’t.

The growth of our vision is rooted in the unique talent of everyone on the team

Patrick had left academia behind, disillusioned with its disconnect from real-world impact. He launched the Umundu Festival — a growing movement for sustainable living — but still felt drawn to support rural communities more directly.

Stefan, a geoecologist, and Alexander, a forester with a finance background, were working on reforestation in Panama and Vietnam. Their mission: turn degraded land into productive forests. It looked good on paper. But on the ground, they saw the dark side of so-called “green” investments: deforestation driven by land speculation, exclusion of local communities, and reforestation that looked better in spreadsheets than in the field.

They saw how a lack of transparency could turn good intentions into harmful outcomes.

What brought us together wasn’t just frustration — it was a shared belief that we could do better.

We saw transparency not as a buzzword, but as a compass: a way to guide meaningful, ethical, effective forest work.

In 2011, we founded OpenForests — an ecosystem of people committed to radical transparency, better decision-making, and forest projects that are more resilient, inclusive, and regenerative.

Learning the hard way

We didn’t start with a product. We started with a skillset and a mission:

Patrick mapped forest change with open-source drone systems. Stefan built information systems to make sense of fragmented data. Alexander helped projects communicate their impact and attract ethical investment.

We learned fast — sometimes the hard way. Our first major contract in Suriname nearly failed when our glider drone crashed on day one. But we solved the challenge creatively, repaired the drone, and ultimately delivered. (We even used another drone to haul the main drone above the canopy!)

We realized that we needed to scale up to make our impact significant

Our work helped projects become more transparent and resilient. But the world was burning — and our reach felt small.

We needed to scale.

The Birth of explorer.land

In 2018, we launched a new expedition: building a map-based platform that could bring our consulting tools to thousands of projects around the world.

explorer.land was born — a digital landscape for forest and conservation projects to map their work, share their impact, and connect with partners and supporters.

Since, thousands of projects have joined.

OpenForests Now

Today, the OpenForests ecosystem has grown into a multidisciplinary team building smart, beautiful, and purpose-driven digital tools for people restoring the planet.