A Little Wild: A Rewilding Project

About the programme

About A Little Wild

A Little Wild (ALW) was started in 2020 by Wee Jun Ning. This project is the result of friends from Singapore and Malaysia coming together after realizing the urgency for a productive, ecologically-beneficial demonstration site. –

for owners to be responsible stewards of their land;
to demonstrate it is possible for agriculture to be both commercial and promote conservation simultaneously, and
for consumers to demand a closer connection with their food sources.

Jun Ning is based in Singapore while the rest of the team are in Johor. Produce harvested will be sold within 50km of the farm – in Johor and Singapore.

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More about the programme

Are our forests carbon sinks or carbon sources?

‍Globally, forests are changing from carbon sinks to carbon emitters.

Of the world’s three largest tropical rainforests, only the Congo has enough standing forest left to remain a strong net carbon sink. The Amazon teeters on the brink while Southeast Asia has become a net emitter. Protecting the remaining forests in all three regions is critical to mitigating climate change. Reforestation and agroforestry projects such as ALW, when carried out at scale, can help to reverse the process and hopefully transform emitters back to sinks for storage. Converting cleared, degraded land or monoculture palm into standing forests can thus improve their carbon absorption potential.

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A small team at ALW plans to transform a 138 acre land parcel in Johor, Malaysia that has been a palm oil plantation since the 1980s, into an educational agroforest.

ALW plans to create a 60-acre fruit and vegetable syntropic agroforest while rewilding at least 40 acres in a similar syntropic fashion, demonstrating on a commercial scale that such a transformation is financially viable.

The purpose of the project is to demonstrate that farming while regenerating nature can work financially.

EB Impact will support ALW in their rewilding efforts, seeking to reintroduce native trees and biodiversity into the area.

Programme Objectives

Support conversion of a declining palm oil plantation into a thriving example of agro-forestry developed and nurtured around sustainable principles.
Support the restoration and enhancement of flora, fauna, insect, marine and wildlife native to the project location.
Demonstrate the improved carbon capture potential of agro-forestry vs industrial monoculture farming.
Demonstrate how this approach can lead to equal or enhanced livelihoods, employment and training opportunities for local communities.
Act as a catalyst for change by being a demonstration project which other projects may refer to across the ASEAN region (and possibly beyond).

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Provide a reference library of information, resources and training support for other such projects to benefit from.

Support Required

To accelerate the pace of the rewilding project, we will need support in a few areas. These areas include:

Purchasing of native trees for the Agroforestry and Rewilding component of the project. Where possible, hiring of additional labour, equipment and providing training dedicated to the rewilding side – and eventually being a training ground for next gen farm managers.
Sourcing access to best-in-class environmental advice on an ongoing basis. At the outset, provision of environmental baseline studies and thereafter, ongoing transformation monitoring.
Promoting awareness of the project, it’s methods, learning and best practices through media and online resources for others to benefit from.
Estimating carbon potential of palm conversion to agroforestry: a bespoke programme to be discussed with the donor community.