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Commonland

Working with partners in 20+ countries to restore degraded landscapes, and create brighter futures - for people, nature, community, and business.

Commonland is an international non-profit that supports people and organisations to restore landscapes and shape a regenerative future for all. With our holistic approach – underpinned by the 4 Returns Framework – people and organisations all over the world are working with nature and their community to restore landscapes. What we do:

All over the world, local organisations are working to restore

the natural ecosystems we all depend on, and shift society towards a regenerative future. One where nature, communities, and economies thrive in harmony. We work closely with these organisations in 20+ countries to strengthen their work, spark collaboration, and share best practices at landscape level. By connecting them with funders, policy actors, businesses, and fellow changemakers, we amplify their impact at local, regional and global scale. Together with partners across sectors, we also work to shift financial flows and public policies towards creating regenerative land use systems. We advocate for tackling interlinked ecological, social, and economic issues in an integrated way through local, regenerative solutions. The result: Thriving ecosystems, economies, and communities for generations to come. The 4 Returns Framework:

- Return of Inspiration – Giving people hope and a sense of purpose.

- Return of Social Capital – Bringing back jobs, education and social connections.

- Return of Natural Capital – Restoring biodiversity and soils for healthy and resilient landscapes: reviving the ecological foundation of our societies and economies.

- Return of Financial Capital – Realising long-term sustainable income for communities and businesses.

❤️ Donate now to make an impact with us: https://commonland.com/donate/

23/06/2026

What does it mean to lead the regeneration of ecosystems, communities, and the human spirit?

In 2025, Dieter van der Broeck, Commonland’s Design Lead for Landscape Leadership Labs, joined our partners from Grupo Ecológico Sierra Gorda and many other restoration organisations from across Latin America in Querétaro, Mexico, for the Ecosystemic Leadership Program Latin America, organised by the Institute

Over five days of deep emergence, more than 300 change agents from across the continent gathered to explore what ecosystem leadership means for their organisations, communities, and personal journeys, co-inspiring a shared vision and beginning to co-create transformative regional initiatives.

A smaller group of around 40 leaders then continued with a 3-day immersion in the Sierra Gorda region, grounding the conversations in lived examples of restoration and regeneration through field visits with

As Pedro Perez from reflected: regeneration here is not only ecological — it is deep, spiritual, and inspirational.

For Commonland, encounters like this are a reminder that in different corners of the world, people are moving in the same direction: cultivating leadership that nurtures both people and planet.

🙏 With thanks to Roberto Pedraza Liana Malva Peter Bahamondes and Coral Herencia

Watch the short documentary on our YouTube channel, link in bio.

17/06/2026

Financing for activities that actively harm nature is STILL more than 30x larger than investment in nature-based solutions.

It’s a huge gap that won’t close on its own.

At Katapult Future Fest our team joined the people already working to change that — funders learning the language of restoration, rewilders learning the language of finance, policymakers, practitioners, and weavers, each holding a different piece of what a new system, a better world, might require.

Here are some of our key takeaways:

💡 Bioregionalism is an opportunity to redefine our economies

📖 We are eating narrative junk food. What is the story we want to tell about this work, and can it be regenerative?

🔥 Sometimes there is no gentle path, you’ve got to burn it down

We’re super grateful to have been able to take part in and contribute to Amsterdam’s first Katapult Future Fest as a media partner - a massive thanks to the team who enabled us to be there 🩵

It was amazing to see and collaborate with old and new partners and friends there at Bioregional Weaving Labs Wire Group, Mesa Co-Funding Alliance, Twist, Stray, Metabolic and many others!

Want to find out more? Dive into the world of Katapult in our new blog: Field notes from Katapult Future Fest.

Link in bio.

15/06/2026

Meet John Loudon 🌱 the CEO of COmON Foundation, John has dedicated his career to nature conservation and sustainable development

He studied business economics in Groningen and began his career in 1993 at the Savage Paradise Foundation, producing nature documentaries for cinema in co-production with Walt Disney Corporation and Discovery Channel. He went on to co-found GLP/BrandWorlds Network, the Netherlands’ largest sponsorship strategy agency, before establishing his own company focused on corporate social responsibility, built around his self-developed JL Social Responsibility Impact Scheme™.

Since its founding in 1997, John has been involved with the Peace Parks Foundation foundation, helping drive the creation of over one million km² of cross-border nature parks across southern Africa. From 2016, he has served as Executive Director of the COmON Foundation, Commonland’s cornerstone funder, where he advocates the Blue Line Society™: “we cannot take more from the earth than the earth is capable of giving back”. He also serves on the Board of the Charles Darwin Foundation and as an advisor to Wetlands International

John has been a committed board member of Commonland – Restoring Landscapes since its early years and remains one of its most dedicated advocates.

10/06/2026

Ireland’s patchwork landscapes - small fields, ancient hedgerows, family farms passed down through generations - are the result of centuries of careful stewardship.

But that stewardship is under quiet, accelerating pressure.

In February, farmer Donal Sheehan stood before the Irish Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture and Food and advocated for Ireland’s landscapes. He’s part of a growing movement, led by fellow farmer Daniel Long, calling for an Irish Land Observatory: an independent, trusted mechanism to track who owns Ireland’s land, who’s buying it, and what’s changing beneath the surface.

“Without transparent oversight of land transactions and values, the system continues to reward scale over stewardship — undermining viable family farms, environmental gains, and generational renewal.”

Donal’s own dairy farm in Cork, where he spent a decade building biodiversity and ecological practice, stopped being a viable business overnight when leased land was sold to the highest bidder with no consideration for the family farm that had been there for generations.

Read more in our latest community voices website blog by our partner Sarah Prosser at Bioregioning South-East Ireland.

Link in bio 🔗

09/06/2026

Ruud Sies and Hanneke van Hintum at have spent nearly a decade documenting the regenerative farmers reshaping our food system — and now, those stories are coming to you!

Resilience Food Stories are launching a major exhibition at the in Rotterdam this Thursday. We’re so proud to partner with Resilience Food Stories to bring the Good Food exhibition to life. It’s a visually spectacular window into resilient agriculture, from smallholder farmers in Uganda to regenerative growers right here in Europe, including farmer-members of our partner in the Altiplano Estepario landscape in southern Spain 🇪🇸

Through this exhibition, Ruud and Hanneke are showing that producing good food from agroecological practices is not only possible, it’s already happening - and it’s the only way forward if we want to restore our planet and learn to live in balance with the natural world. RFS’ work shows us that good food requires healthy landscapes - and healthy landscapes require care, connection and commitment from those who steward them.

Not in the Netherlands? The accompanying photobook is available to purchase now, so you can explore the world of regenerative agriculture from the comfort of your own home.

📍 Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam 🗓️ 12 June – 1 November 2026

Tickets in bio 🎟️

08/06/2026

RESTORING LAND IS AN ACT OF OCEAN STEWARDSHIP - EVEN WHEN THE SEA FEELS FAR AWAY

In Mallorca, Spain and Waterford, Ireland, our partners are doing exactly this - creating resilient food systems that reduce soil erosion and agricultural water pollution on land, while also protecting the coastline and surrounding seascapes. Healthier land reduces pollution flowing into the sea, and stronger marine ecosystems reinforce the shore 🤝

What happens on land doesn’t stay on land. Degraded soils can’t absorb water. Intensive agriculture strips organic matter and sends nutrient-laden runoff downstream — through rivers, wetlands, estuaries — and out into the ocean. Dead zones, algal blooms, collapsing marine ecosystems: these aren’t ocean problems. They’re landscape problems.

Restoring a single field or protecting one stretch of coastline isn’t enough. Nature doesn’t recognise the lines of distinction drawn on maps. If we want to restore ocean health, we have to think across entire landscapes: from the hilltop to the hedgerow, from the floodplain to the estuary, from the ridge to the reef.

Watching David Attenborough’s Ocean last year, the bottom trawling footage was devastating — vast swathes of the seabed demolished in a single sweep. It struck us how familiar it looked: like intensive tillage on land. Disturb the surface, destroy the structure beneath, and lose the capacity to hold, filter, and sustain life.

Turns out, the scar on the seabed and the scar on the soil are the same.

This is why landscape scale matters. And why the people dedicating their every day to doing it need celebration, and support!

Happy World Ocean’s Day. 🌊

05/06/2026

“WITHOUT A HEALTHY PLANET, THERE CANNOT BE HEALTHY PEOPLE OR COMMUNITIES” — UNESCO Chair, Liette Vasseur

The planet doesn’t argue, and it doesn’t negotiate either. It does send signals: extreme weather events, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, silence in places that were once filled with birdsong.

Our planet is facing large, often existential, and increasingly urgent challenges. Should these issues be left to large organisations, governments, and finance systems? The evidence suggests otherwise.

Of the 169 targets within the UN Sustainable Development Goals, 109 are at the community level. The decisions that determine whether land is restored or degraded, whether water is protected or polluted, whether farming systems build resilience or deplete it — they’re made on the land, by the people who live, work and rely on it.

A new IUCN publication, Urban-Rural Linkage: An Ecosystem Governance Perspective, reinforces this from a governance angle. Across nine case studies spanning water governance, farming and energy, it finds that bringing decision-making to the community level is among the most effective ways to sustain our environment and prevent land degradation.

Community-driven landscape restoration is a direct, practical, and effective response to climate breakdown. Stakeholder dialogue, flexible ecosystem management, and balancing social, economic, and environmental factors locally are the infrastructure of meaningful climate action.

This isn’t just an idea; we see it in action. Our partners restore landscapes from the soil up, grounded in local knowledge and experience, committed to the long haul. They’ve transformed their land, increased resilience to change and disaster, and built the most important thing — hope — for the future.

What next? We must close the gap between global challenges and local action. In daily life, as individuals, families, and communities. Change can, must, and already is happening at the community level.

Studies and further reading linked in the comments 👇

01/06/2026

Meet Luc Gnacadja 🌱 Mayor of Cotonou and an architect by training, with over four decades of experience at the intersection of sustainable development, public policy, and territorial transformation.

He served as Minister of Environment, Housing and Urban Planning of Benin from 1999 to 2005, and subsequently as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification () from 2007 to 2013. During his tenure he was the guiding voice for sustainable land development in the negotiations leading up to the Rio+20 Summit in 2012, and is widely recognised as the architect of the concept of Land Degradation Neutrality — now embedded in the global development agenda as SDG Target 15.3.

He is the founder of GPS-Dev (Governance & Policies for Sustainable Development), a think-and-do tank promoting governance reforms for inclusive and sustainable development. His work has consistently focused on restoring the balance between people, nature, and economies through integrated, landscape-based approaches.

Luc Gnacadja currently serves on several international boards, including and contributes to advancing innovative climate finance mechanisms, notably through the Adaptation Benefits Mechanism of the Paris Agreement.

Luc brings to Commonland’s Supervisory Board unparalleled expertise and long-standing commitment to land restoration policy, African regional leadership, and the role of cities as catalysts for resilient and inclusive transitions.

31/05/2026

HOW DOES SYSTEMIC CHANGE ACTUALLY HAPPEN? 💥

Welcome to the chaotic world of Transition Dynamics!!
When old systems (think fossil fuel industries) begin to decline, tensions rise, and doubts about their sustainability spread.

This is when new ideas start to emerge. At first, they might seem radical—like cycling to work instead of driving—but over time, they gain traction and become a part of our social norms.

The X-curve (by .eur and .kic) is a tool for understanding how societies transition. It shows us the patterns of breakdown and buildup, highlighting leverage points for change and opportunities for new growth.

The X-curve can help you to:

🔍 Understand Systems: The X-curve makes transition dynamics clearer by visualising how old systems decline while new ones grow, and how their forces interact.

🤝 Set Priorities: It helps co-develop a shared vision among stakeholders, making systemic change easier to navigate and creating a common agenda for the future.

💡 Guide Action: The tool identifies interventions, strategies, and resources needed to foster systemic change, guiding experiments and decision-making.

🌀 Drive Learning: It encourages ongoing reflection and learning, helping stakeholders adapt and steer through transformative shifts.

Curious to learn more about using the X-curve for your work? Check out this resource from .eur for Transition and .kic in the comments below👇

How could the X-curve support your journey? Have you used it before? we’d love to hear your experiences.

30/05/2026

What comes to mind when you hear “return on investment”?💰📈

What if it also meant restoring ecosystems, reconnecting communities, and reimagining a future worth working toward?

Meet the 4 Returns Framework.

🌱 Return of nature

Restoring biodiversity, soils, and water cycles for healthy and resilient landscapes: reviving nature.

🤝 Return of community

Creating new livelihood and education opportunities and weaving social connections: the building blocks of thriving communities.

💸 Return of financial capital

Creating long-term economic prosperity and resilience for communities via new business models and income streams that suit each unique landscape.

💡 Return of inspiration

Connecting people to the landscape and motivating them to care for nature: planting seeds of hope for a brighter future.

People and organisations all over the world are already working to restore landscapes.

From conservationists and farmers to business owners and policymakers, the 4 Returns Framework supports collaborative efforts to restore nature and regenerate communities.

Watch our new video to see how it works!

Link in bio to the full resolution version.

Adres

Kraanspoor 26
Amsterdam
1033SE

Openingstijden

Maandag	09:00 - 17:00
Dinsdag	09:00 - 17:00
Woensdag	09:00 - 17:00
Donderdag	09:00 - 17:00
Vrijdag	09:00 - 17:00

Website

http://www.commonland.com/

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