OneCanopy's differentiator is in their ability to adapt to client needs
OneCanopy has sold 35,000 trees for 2023 planting so far. Their current clients include federal, state, and local government entities, nonprofits, tribal agencies, and private landowners. The plant material they’ve purchased will support wildlife habitats, river and wildfire restoration, soil conservation, and food sovereignty.
“One of our core tenets is truly partnering with our clients,” said Martinez. “We know their needs will vary greatly, from order size to species to timing. As a small company, we can be flexible and adapt our processes to meet their specific needs.”
Rocky Mountain region welcomes needed reforestation company, OneCanopy
OneCanopy is a privately funded conservation nursery in northern Colorado, growing native trees and shrubs for reforestation throughout the Rocky Mountains. The demand is enormous, and OneCanopy is there to help fill it.
Trees started in the nursery are able to get a jump on trees that might sprout from seed in the wild. In six or eight months, a nursery tree will be as tall as a 2- or 3-year-old tree in nature. That translates into an increased survival rate for greenhouse trees when planted in nature. While forest service trees typically have a 50% survival rate, trees from private greenhouses have upward of 75% survival rates.
Reforestation operation takes shape in Loveland greenhouse
Imagine, if you can, 350,000 tubes, each six to eight inches tall and an inch in diameter. Each is filled with a special mixture of fertilized soil and popping from the top is a ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, lodgepole pine, a narrow-leaf cottonwood or some other tree suitable for planting in Colorado.
Each of those tubes was seeded with exactly three seeds — by hand. If all three seeds sprouted, two would be removed, again by hand, to leave room for the strongest. Or perhaps the other two seedlings would be replanted and nurtured into viable plantings.
The result of this hand labor is an expanse of seedling trees that in the next year or two will find new homes in the landscape of Colorado, replacing trees lost to beetles or fire or, perhaps, in a local homeowners association looking to have more visual greenery.
The demand for trees suitable for reforesting the region’s mountainsides, high plateaus and prairies is enormous, and a new social enterprise company, OneCanopy, is there to help fill it.
OneCanopy is the brainchild of Kevin Brinkman, whose day job is as CEO of Brinkman Real Estate Services LLC. With an interest in the environment and seeing the need in Colorado for reforestation, he launched Brinkman Conservation LLC, hired a staff and began to plant trees under the trade name OneCanopy. The operation runs from a former hemp greenhouse at 2880 14th St. SE in Loveland. A company Brinkman created called KMB 525 LLC bought the greenhouse property for $2.1 million.
OneCanopy aims to address the entire reforestation process from seed to project monitoring
It all started with an article. In February 2021, researchers from The Nature Conservancy and the United States Forest Service explored the aggressive reforestation goals that have been proposed in response to climate change. Their study showed that 30 billion trees were needed by 2040, requiring nursery production in the US to more than double to meet this target.
Fort Collins native Kevin Brinkman has joined the effort to combat deforestation issues in the Rocky Mountain region by founding OneCanopy, Colorado’s first reforestation company.
The company is a privately funded social enterprise that aims to engage in various facets of the reforestation pipeline, beginning with a seedling nursery growing plants that are native to the Rocky Mountain region. Although the seedling nursery is the company’s first official foray in to the conservation space, their vision is to engage in every aspect of the reforestation pipeline. Over time, OneCanopy plans to add project financing and implementation, seed collection, out-planting, and post-project monitoring to their services.
Fort Collins developer launches company to help regrow forests after fires, beetle kill
Loveland’s OneCanopy is on a mission to grow trees and shrubs to reforest areas hit hard by wildfire, drought and beetle kill in Colorado and beyond.
Brinkman Real Estate’s CEO, Kevin Brinkman, has started a business to help reforest areas in the Rocky Mountain region hit hard by years of beetle kill, wildfires, and drought.
Brinkman started OneCanopy after reading an article about deforestation. A Nature Conservancy and U.S. Forest Service study estimated the U.S. needs 30 billion additional trees by 2040 to adequately address large-scale deforestation.
“I couldn’t believe the numbers coming out of that study,” said Brinkman, who is not giving up his day job. “It showed how important it is for private (businesses) to start investing in this effort for us to meet these goals.”
Click here to read the full article in The Coloradoan >>
