Most organisations learn these things privately and publish only the successes. That habit is why the same mistakes keep being repeated across the sector.
1. Nyakayojo: a total loss
In 2023 we planted roughly 900 seedlings on a stretch at Nyakayojo. We had the landowner's agreement in writing. What we did not have was any conversation with the household actually farming the land, who were tenants and had not been consulted by the owner.
Everything was removed within a season. Not vandalism — a rational response by people whose growing area had been reduced without their agreement or any compensation.
It cost us a full planting cycle and a nursery's output. It also taught us the single most useful thing we know: find out who uses the land, not just who owns it. That step is now formally part of the protocol and no site proceeds without it.
2. Eucalyptus near water
In our first season we planted eucalyptus on a wet site, because it was available, it grows fast, and it is what people in the area plant. It was the wrong decision and we should have known.
Eucalyptus near water draws the table down around it — precisely the opposite of what a wetland margin needs. We stopped in 2023 and we will not resume.
We have left this in our published record rather than removing it, because a reader deciding whether to trust our species choices deserves to know we have got them wrong before.
3. A school programme that folded
Our first education work was delivered by our own staff visiting classrooms. It was well received, the sessions were good, and it ended completely the month the funding for that district paused.
Nothing remained. No teacher had been trained, no materials stayed with the school, and the pupils who had attended had moved up a year.
The programme was rebuilt around training the school's own teachers. It is slower to establish and considerably less photogenic. It is also still running.
4. Planting to the calendar
In 2023 and 2024 we scheduled planting days by calendar date, because volunteers, schools and vehicles all need to be booked in advance.
Twice we planted before the rains properly arrived. Dry-season losses on those cohorts were severe and are a significant part of why our overall survival figure is 61% rather than something closer to 70%.
We now confirm onset on the ground and accept the logistical cost of moving a planting day at short notice.
What this page is for
Partly accountability. Mostly so that another organisation starting similar work in this catchment does not spend a season learning the Nyakayojo lesson the way we did.
If you spot us repeating one of these
Tell us. It will not be the first uncomfortable email we have received and they have all been useful.