What we do

The project

In short

Paskaia restores degraded Caribbean pine savanna in La Mosquitia, Honduras, together with Indigenous Miskito communities. The work is simple to describe and hard to do: stop the yearly fires so young forest can grow, and pay local people to do it.

Restoration is now active across more than 4,000 hectares, with millions of young trees coming back, largely on their own. To make that possible, we protect the grassland from the fires that sweep through several times a year. Where fires stop, the pines regenerate naturally, and we add targeted planting where the seed trees are already gone.

Fire control is hard, demanding work, so we do it with the Miskito communities, not for them. After decades of watching their forest disappear, people here wanted it back. For many, joining the brigades, cutting firebreaks and fighting fire to protect the next generation of forest, has meant their first steady income.

How it works

Three parts of the work.

Restaurering av tallsavann

Savanna restoration

For centuries, logging and fire turned Caribbean pine forest into bare savanna. We train and employ local fire brigades to build firebreaks, patrol, and stop the wildfires that kill young trees. That protection lets the forest regenerate, and it gives hundreds of families a steady income.

Mahogny- och cederplantager

Mahogany and cedar, with families

On family plots and leased land, we help smallholders grow mahogany, cedar and other native species alongside their crops. The trees become long-term household assets, diversify income, and improve soil, water retention and carbon storage at the same time.

Samhällsledd genom samdesign

Community-led by design

Paskaia is community-led at its core. Decisions run through MASTA, the elected Territorial Councils, and community meetings, with consent treated as an ongoing process rather than a one-off signature. Working with researchers from universities in Sweden, Australia and Honduras, we make sure women, youth and marginalised groups have a real part in the work.

Evidence from the pilot

When the fire stops, regeneration is fast.

In the 2021 to 2023 pilot, we protected roughly 1,000 hectares in Truktsinasta. After two years of fire control, monitoring recorded about 2,500 young pines per hectare, and only about 5% of the area burned.

~95%fire-control effectiveness
2,500saplings per hectare
24 kmof firebreaks built

A real story

Meet the people doing the work.

Yolanda Bosen Reyes

Yolanda grows crops to feed her family in Tikiraya, a community reachable only by boat. Without a way to reach a market, earning an income is hard. She's part of Paskaia's work in La Mosquitia, and a reminder of how central women are to restoring this landscape.

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Yolanda Jonsson“We can't do it alone. With support, change is possible.”Yolanda Bosen Reyes
Charles“Now we have a vision as a people, not just my vision”Charles Alexander Wood

Charles Alexander Wood

Charles lives in Tipi with his wife Diana and their two children. He's become a leader in the work to bring back the savanna the community depends on, for building homes, keeping animals and feeding families, even as fires keep coming back. Three years in, he says what felt impossible turned out to be possible: the deer and other animals that had moved away are being seen on the plain again.

Read Charles's story →