In Myanmar, one startup is using drones to quickly replant a massive mangrove forest. In the U.S., a third startup is replanting abandoned farmland with pongamia, a type of tree that needs little irrigation and produces oil that can be used in biofuel and food. The companies are part of an emerging “restoration economy” focused on reforestation and otherwise restoring degraded land.

“Technology is bringing down the cost of tree planting,” says Sofia Faruqi, who manages the New Restoration Economy program at World Resources Institute. “We’re seeing consumers take a greater interest in the environment, in particular in restoration and conservation. We’re seeing great political momentum with large government commitments being made in the last couple of years, and we’re also seeing business model innovation continuing at full speed.

Restoration and conservation can deliver at least a third of the emission reductions needed by 2030 to keep the global temperature on track to stay below a two-degree rise; restoration also has multiple other benefits, including protecting wildlife habitat and sources of drinking water.

“Often it’s hard for these companies to explain to investors what they are doing in cases where it’s a relatively new idea, and it may also be that they’re in countries where capital markets are small and inefficient,” says Faruqi. Startups often also need better access to markets. Last, she says, policy often needs to change–right now, the incentives to degrade (through subsidies for agriculture in the rainforest, for example) are often greater than the incentives to restore.

Read the full article about environmental restoration by Adele Peters at Fast Company.