Sometimes, restoring a forest means cutting down trees.

In Spain’s Muga Valley, in the Pyrenees, centuries of charcoal production have left behind dense, uniform oak forests.

Although the landscape looks lush, it has become what scientists call a “green desert” - a place where trees dominate so completely that little else can thrive.

The canopy blocks sunlight, the trees consume large amounts of water, and streams that once fed the Muga River are drying up. Droughts become more severe, and wildlife disappears.

Restoring this damaged ecosystem requires an unconventional approach. That’s where Stef van Dongen and his team at Pioneers of Our Time come in.

Their strategy begins by thinning the dense tree canopy. By removing selected trees, they allow more sunlight and moisture to reach the forest floor, giving undergrowth a chance to return. This helps revive soil health, improve water availability and restore the natural balance of the ecosystem.

As the landscape recovers, it can once again support a richer variety of wildlife, including otters, crayfish, wolves and deer. But one important group is still missing: vultures.

Often misunderstood, vultures play a vital role in healthy ecosystems. As nature’s clean-up crew, they feed on animal carcasses, helping limit the spread of disease and keeping nutrients moving through the environment. Their return would be an important step towards restoring the valley’s ecological balance.

With support from the Planet Wild community, the project is restoring 10 hectares of forest while also helping bring vultures back to the region.

To encourage these highly social birds to return, the team is installing five vulture puppet decoys to make the area appear more inviting, providing safe feeding stations, and fitting two vultures with GPS trackers to monitor their movements and progress.

Together, these measures support both the recovery of the habitat and the return of a species that plays an essential role in its long-term health.

The ultimate goal is to create a self-sustaining ecosystem where water, vegetation and wildlife can once again support one another. Rather than simply making the forest look greener, the project is working to restore the natural processes that allow biodiversity to flourish.

And if you’d like to see this work for yourself, Stef and his team welcome visitors to the Muga Valley to experience the project’s impact firsthand.

Find out more about visiting and the restoration work at Pioneers of Our Time.

Sometimes, helping a forest thrive means giving it room to breathe — and allowing the life beneath the canopy to return.