Listen to the forest.
In 2020, the world was confined to their homes. some would have lucky enough to see nature from its windows, to be able to smell it, to be able to listen to it, to be able to recharge from its pure air. Others took weeks, months to be able to see more than three trees together again. It is already more than said and reflected, the desire to return to nature has been one of the most direct consequences of the pandemic and its confinements. Some are even considering leaving the city forever.
All this was going around the heads of the founders and employees of the Berlin digital agency New Now, when they accidentally fell into the web Sounds of the Forest. "I loved the idea (hooray for them!)," he says. Kai Nicolaides, agency partner. “We knew that people around the world had to stay home due to lockdowns and the pandemic. Many were having problems with anxiety. Mental health and meditation topics were growing.” Then they came up with the idea of create easy (and beautiful) immersive access to forest sounds from around the globe. "It could be A short escape from this madness." he continues. "Y Tree.fm Had been born".
The radio of the forests of the world.
Being a digital agency they had "all the resources" to quickly create a website of this type. “It also helps that we're big fans of the positive impact projects Kai adds. “We started setting it up right away, although we had to do it at night, at the end of the day, when we finished our work with clients, because there was no money involved in this.”
And what is Tree.fm? "It's a shinrin Yoku Digital, a virtual trip, a tree radio, climate activism, an escape from home or the office”, laughs this creative German. "Sorry, I just want all those definitions to be true." And they are.
Tree.fm is a radio of forests, they are sounds recorded by people around the world. People who record their walks through their favorite green spaces and upload them to Sounds of the Forest locating the place. That's why, Tree.fm is also a virtual journey between trees and sounds of birds or lemurs. From Madagascar to Patagonia, from Ibiza to Turkey. From Japan to Guatemala. You can listen to the sound of a single forest on a loop or put it on as a playlist and enter a state of absolute relaxation. That's why, Tree.fm is also a “digital shinrin-yoku”, that is, a “forest bath” or natural therapy, a Japanese practice that is gaining more and more strength in the rest of the world: It is a total immersion in nature with the purpose of disconnecting and relaxing, entering that forest with all the senses open.
Lago di Braies, Dolomites, Italy.
But like shinrin-yoku, Tree.fm was born not only to relieve our personal stress, but also. Both have a second, broader purpose: let's know the forests that share the planet with us (that, in fact, we live on it thanks to them) and that Let's relearn to respect and care for them.
“After we came up with the idea for Tree.fm, it seemed right to us on so many different levels,” explains Nicolaides. “Not only because of the pandemic. We are also experiencing a climate crisis. 2020 has been devastating with forest fires, droughts… T ree.fm is a much-needed reminder that the planet's vital ecosystem is in peril."
Rain falls in the Ankasa forest in Ghana.
And so the second leg of the project arose: every time you hear the sound of a forest, the option to plant a tree appears. New Now partnered with Ecosia, another Berlin digital company that donates 80% of its profits to reforestation. “We knew we wanted to make a positive impact with this project and when we talked to Ecosia and they explained their new tree planting site, it turned out to be the perfect match.”
Since Tree.fm was born in December, they don't know how many trees have already been planted, but they do know that 22,000 people have clicked on the “Plant some trees” button. Good news. “And people have already heard a million forests.”
The sea, the birds... That's how Ibiza sounds too.