Green Shield Mongolia signs MOU with Mongolian National Forest Association

Today, in a ceremony attended by representatives of the Office of the President of Mongolia and the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, the Green Finance Initiative (GFI) — operator of the Green Shield Mongolia donation platform — signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Mongolian National Forest Association.

The agreement establishes a formal cooperation framework for tree-planting and forest-restoration activities funded through individual and corporate donations on the Green Shield Mongolia platform. Under the MOU, all planting work will align with Mongolia’s national forest policy, established silvicultural standards, and the technical requirements set by the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change.

What the partnership covers

The MOU is structured around three commitments:

• Joint implementation of donor-funded planting cohorts across priority aimags — beginning with Khovd, Gobi-Altai, and Bayan-Ölgii — using native species and methodology approved by the Forest Association’s technical committee.
• Independent year-1 and year-3 survival audits, with the Forest Association acting as the third-party verifier on cohort survival reports published to donors and the public.
• Alignment with the Billion Trees National Movement, Mongolia’s flagship reforestation programme, ensuring that every shield planted through Green Shield Mongolia counts toward the national target.

Why it matters

Mongolia loses approximately one million hectares of grassland to desertification every year. Trans-boundary sand and dust storms originating in the Gobi affect downwind populations across China, Korea, and Japan each spring. The Forest Association is the country’s longest-standing technical authority on forest restoration, and its participation gives donor-funded planting through Green Shield Mongolia an institutional accountability layer that is uncommon in voluntary tree-planting programmes globally.

“Donors give to plant a tree. We owe them proof that the tree is alive — three years later, with photographs, GPS coordinates, and a survival count audited by people who don’t work for us. This MOU is what makes that promise enforceable.” — Maralgoo Ganbat, Chair, Green Finance Initiative

What’s next

The first cohort planted under the MOU will be the spring 2026 cycle, targeting 47,000 saplings across three Khovd-province sites. The Forest Association’s verification team will conduct the year-1 audit in summer 2027. Audited results will be published to green-shields.com/reports within 14 days of the audit’s completion.

Green Shield Mongolia donations start at $10 for one tree, with scaled tiers up to a 1,000-tree corporate grove.

← All press releases