Providing reforestation in remote locations across Portugal and the world!
I am from rural Portugal. I grew playing in the woods close to home. That is literally where I learned how to laugh, and love, and respect. More than a playground the forest was always my little hideaway and my school. Years went on and many wildfires turned that place into a memory. Bald, grey, and empty. I wanted to do something about bringing the forest back, so I went to talk with many reforestation initiatives to reforest in my zone, and most of them looked me dead in the eyes and told me: – Imagine yourself being on the top of a mountain, carrying 100kg of trees, and being afraid to death of falling down.
Thats when I realized that, adding to the complexity of deforestation, about 60% of Portuguese forests (and 40% in Europe) are located in hazardous and dangerous terrains, making reforestation impossible for manual planters. For comparison, while 500 trees are cut every second worldwide, only 60 are replanted, significantly due to the inaccessibility of these terrains. Shockingly, even the best technologies out there, which could help reach those locations, fall short. Technologies like seed-shooting drones have a tree success rate of only about 20%, wasting countless seeds in a century where seeds are becoming one of the most scarce natural resources.
So dreaming about bringing my memories back to reality, and building a world where not just the next generation of Portuguese people, but the entire world’s have the same playground as I once did, I invented Trovador.
Trovador is an autonomous robot designed to be deployed in landscapes to reforest. It is a hexapod robot (6 legs) that, with tools on each limb, is capable of measuring the soil humidity, drilling a hole, planting the tree, and then stomping its root collar. Due to its anatomy, it is able to balance itself in tilted slopes, but also distribute its weight through its paws creating little print in the soil, therefore preserving it. Because each leg is engineered to have different tools, it is able to minimize downtime by planting while walking. And since it will run autonomously utilizing existing AI technologies to maneuver itself in the terrain, we are able to increase safety among tree planters, allowing them to monitor the robot from a distance through a UI.
My biggest priority when designing Trovador was also that every single tree survived when planted, therefore I reverse-engineered the reason why current technologies fall short. Instead of using seeds, it plants saplings (young trees) and carefully controls critical soil conditions during planting, such as depth, pressure, and humidity, using the robot’s specialized tools.
Trovador is more than a machine—it’s a solution for global reforestation, tackling climate change, protecting biodiversity, and promoting sustainable development. It embodies this vision by directly addressing several UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):
🌳 SDG 15 – Life on Land
Trovador revitalizes forests by planting native species that restore biodiversity, creating habitats for wildlife and rejuvenating ecosystems. This promotes long-term sustainability for our planet’s green spaces.
🌎 SDG 13 – Climate Action
Forests are nature’s carbon sinks, and Trovador accelerates their restoration. By planting trees, it helps reduce atmospheric CO₂, lower temperatures, and enhance local precipitation patterns—critical in combating the climate crisis.
👷 SDG 8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth
By replacing risky manual planting in rough terrains, Trovador protects human volunteers while generating new jobs in forestry, eco-tourism, and agroforestry. It creates opportunities for innovation and sustainable economic growth in rural areas.
🛡️ SDG 9 – Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
Trovador prevents environmental hazards like wildfires, floods, and landslides by planting strategically to stabilize soils and create resilient forests, protecting communities and infrastructure from natural disasters.
Through Trovador, I aim to make reforestation smarter, safer, and scalable—building a future where both humanity can learn and live with nature.