Recently, a group of ordinary Chinese "tree planters" appeared on the cover of the latest issue of Forbes.

The Forbes cover did not feature portraits of business giants or tech upstarts, but rather representatives of "tree friends" from across the country who hiked through the edge of the Badain Jaran Desert, crossing through time itself, to reunite with the poplar forests they had planted on their phones years ago.

Ant Forest Forest No. 666, located in Jinta, Gansu 鈥?ten years ago, this was barren sand; ten years later, contiguous poplar trees have kept the wind and sand at bay.

Ant Forest Forest No. 666 blocks the movement of the Badain Jaran Desert - Jinta, Gansu Some of them "collect energy to plant trees" on their phones every day, while others are responsible for digging pits, planting seedlings, and patrolling in the desert daily.

Ten years ago, they did not know each other; ten years later, the grown trees brought people thousands of miles apart into the same photograph.

On the occasion of its tenth anniversary, Ant Forest released an open letter titled "Respect Nature's Boundaries, Continue to Dream Boldly." The letter's phrases such as "You still need dreams, what if they come true?" made many readers detect a familiar "Jack Ma flavor."

Scroll to view the full text Looking back at Ant Forest's ten years through this letter, Jack Ma's understanding of trust between people, his concern for real-world challenges, and his insistence on long-term investment have all left clear traces in this "long-termist" project.

More importantly, these initial commitments, colored by the founder's personal touch, gradually evolved over ten years into the value foundation of "a company that does things like planting trees" 鈥?patience with reality and steadfastness toward long-term value.

A "Chinese Patience" That Made the World Curious

In fact, before appearing on the Forbes cover, Ant Forest had already entered the view of many overseas observers.

Among them, the question that Tech in Asia focused on was very representative: Why do hundreds of millions of people participate? This is the first key to understanding Ant Forest.

Traditional environmental issues are often far removed from ordinary people. Combating desertification, carbon reduction incentive mechanisms, biodiversity protection鈥攖hese grand and specialized concepts are difficult to connect with ordinary people's daily lives.

The first thing Ant Forest did was lower the threshold for participating in environmental public welfare.

In August 2016, Ant Forest launched, allowing "cloud tree planting" via mobile phones. Taking public transit, reducing paper and plastic use, recycling, and other small, fragmented actions 鈥?as long as you persist, you earn "green energy" rewards.

Once you accumulate enough, you can apply to plant a tree or protect one square meter of a public welfare conservation area.

Environmental protection thus became a small thing anyone could do every day.

However, "low threshold" can only explain why people "come in," not why they can persist for ten years.

At first glance, the answer is not complicated. After all, the trees planted on phones actually ended up being planted in the ground, constantly giving users positive feedback.

Yet as time stretches on, this answer becomes very complex, even transcending the product itself.

Over ten years, nearly ten million people planted "love trees." Some treat collecting energy as a daily habit, some plant trees on the day their child is born, and some even went from online "tree friends" to partners, then brought their children to see the trees they planted together.

In August 2026, representatives of "tree planters" from both ends of the phone posed for a group photo with Ant Forest Forest No. 666 in Jinta, Gansu A tree, in this way, entered a person's life and began recording life's growth and etching unforgettable moments.

This is what makes Ant Forest special. It did not require ordinary people to become environmentalists, but first brought environmental protection into daily life, then generated emotional connections through long-term participation.

But this emotion also cannot fully answer 鈥?why has this persisted for ten years? The answer is that on the other end of the phone, someone has also kept their promise for ten years.

As of this year, Ant Forest has accumulated over 700 million participants, with 160 million people planting over 700 million trees, distributed across 13 provinces and more than 150 counties, with a planting area of 4,713 square kilometers.

"Plant one on your phone, plant one in the ground" sounds simple, but the hard part is honoring this promise for ten years.

Ant Forest's early interface Over the past ten years, to honor this promise, Ant Group has cumulatively committed over 5.1 billion yuan in donations, working with public welfare organizations and, under the guidance of forestry and grassland departments, having professional institutions implement projects.

Tree planters in various regions undertake planting, maintenance, and patrolling 鈥?not just planting trees, but also extending to establishing public welfare conservation areas and marine ecological protection, cumulatively supporting ecological construction in 26 provinces.

Looking at public welfare projects launched by Chinese tech companies in recent years, Ant Forest is definitely an "oddity," somewhat "counterintuitive" in its personality.

Over the past few decades, what China's tech industry has excelled at most is "speed." From the internet to new energy vehicles, and now to AI, speed constitutes the main competitive advantage.

But trees are different. Trees are just trees; they can only grow slowly year by year, and ecological restoration cannot be accomplished overnight.

So Ant Forest, from another angle, provides a rare observational sample: Can a tech company known for efficiency do something destined to be slow well, and sustain investment for ten years? Now, we have seen the answer.

And that open letter brings the public's attention back to ten years ago, to that starting point where no one knew the outcome.

A Very "Jack Ma-style" Open Letter

The title of Ant Forest's tenth-anniversary open letter is "Respect Nature's Boundaries, Continue to Dream Boldly." This phrase itself is very "Jack Ma." But this "Jack Ma flavor" comes not only from the language, but from the value judgment behind it: believing in ordinary people, being willing to give chances to ideas not yet proven, and being willing to wait for things of genuine value.

In September 2019, Ant Forest received the UN Champions of the Earth award Ten years ago, Ant Forest was just such a somewhat "naive" idea.

In 2016, before the G20 Hangzhou Summit, when the entire city was immersed in the future imagination of economic takeoff, several frontline employees at Ant were discussing, through the "public welfare hours" advocated by Jack Ma, a question that could not generate economic returns 鈥?can the internet enable ordinary people to participate in green public welfare? The method they came up with was: users persist in environmentally friendly behaviors in life and can plant a tree on their phones 鈥?correspondingly, the company donates money to plant trees in places that truly need ecological governance.

Today, this logic is already familiar. But at the time, it needed to solve a series of questions with no ready answers: How to calculate environmental behaviors, how to link online trees with offline trees, where the money comes from, who plants the trees, and how to ensure long-term management and protection.

This is a typical "problems first, answers second" project, and more troublesome, many answers cannot be solved by internet technology alone.

That it gained Jack Ma's support is also related to his long-standing value judgment: No one has done it before does not mean it should not be done; not seeing short-term feedback does not mean there is no value.

Satellite view of Ant Forest Forest No. 251 - Wuwei, Gansu In fact, Jack Ma's thinking predates Ant Forest itself.

As early as Arbor Day in 2010, Jack Ma planted three trees. Rather than how many trees he planted, he was more focused on the coming decades: "will pay attention to water, pay attention to forests. Today is just the beginning. We hope to do this persistently." This event is now recognized as the spiritual origin of Ant Forest.

Nine years later, Jack Ma went to Dunhuang. Seeing saxaul for the first time, he felt that this plant, which looked like "straw" when first planted, had almost no chance of survival.

But years later, seeing new green in the desert, what he noticed was how plants adapt to harsh environments, how they stubbornly survive, and thereby change the fate of a desert.

He said: "Although it's not easy, nothing is easy. Start little by little." By 2025, he visited Ant Forest Forest No. 464 in Horqin Right Middle Banner, Inner Mongolia. This time, the discussion went from "planting trees" deeper into water: how much rainfall, how to use water efficiently, and in arid regions, how trees can survive.

Comparison of Ant Forest Forest No. 464 before and after planting caragana - Horqin Right Middle Banner, Inner Mongolia From caring about "how many to plant" to caring about "how to better survive," behind this is an upgrade in cognition, also representing a shift in public welfare philosophy from enthusiasm toward professionalism.

Ecological public welfare is not about the more trees the better, nor is enthusiasm alone enough. What to plant, where to plant, how much water is needed 鈥?all must respect nature's laws.

This corresponds to the first half of the open letter's title: Respect nature's boundaries. The second half is: Continue to dream boldly.

The two phrases seem contradictory but actually speak to the same thing: Ideas can be bold, but implementation must respect laws; technology can open new possibilities, but ultimately must solve real problems.

This is also what is more noteworthy when looking back at Jack Ma's influence on Ant Forest after ten years. What he influenced was not just why he supported an "bold dream" project ten years ago, but also how this endeavor can be done more sustainably ten years later: believe in ordinary people, solve real problems, be willing to wait for long-term results.

This, too, has grown into the underlying values and systematic methodology of the company he founded.

A Company That "Does Things Like Planting Trees"

An idea can be romantic, but implementation cannot rely on romance alone. If Ant Forest relied only on the phrase "believe in the power of belief," it would be hard pressed to last ten years.

Behind 700 million participants and 700 million trees, there is a need for money, professional institutions, local collaboration, technical capabilities, and sustained management and protection. Values ultimately must be delivered through organizational capability.

Looking back at many of Ant's choices over the years, three "always" can be seen. It is precisely these three "always" that turned the company's values into capabilities.

The first is always starting from real needs. "Make it easy to do business anywhere" means helping users do business they could not do before.

Early escrow transactions aimed to solve the trust problem in online transactions between strangers; micro and small credit aimed to ease the financing difficulties of small merchants.

With Ant Forest, this logic became giving people originally far from environmental protection an entry point to participate. Different matters, very similar thinking: first find a real existing problem, then use technology and resources to lower the threshold for solving it.

The second is always leaving room for "bold dreams," but implementation requires hard, unglamorous work. Ant provides public welfare funds and the platform, public welfare organizations and professional institutions handle implementation, local workers plant, replant, and patrol, while professionals research implementation plans suited to local ecological conditions, water resources, and tree species characteristics.

This collaborative mechanism is the foundation for 700 million trees to grow. Entering the new decade, this logic continues to develop.

This year's Ant Forest Green Technology Innovation Competition attracted 210 youth teams from around the world, bringing technology into scenarios such as desert water resources, biodiversity, and marine protection.

From extracting water from air and rainwater harvesting, to finless porpoise monitoring and sea turtle tracking, young people's "bold dreams" are being tested in real environments with the help of cutting-edge AI-era technology.

Ant Forest "Green Technology Innovation Competition" finals scene Ten years ago, the internet solved how to let ordinary people participate in environmental protection; ten years later, AI is helping people understand nature more accurately and solve problems between humans and nature.

Technology has changed, but the logic of "solving real problems" has never changed.

The third is always placing ordinary people in the goals, process, and results. This is also the most interesting aspect of this Forbes cover.

Over ten years, Ant Forest has cumulatively created 5.17 million person-times of labor opportunities in planting, maintenance, and patrolling, with labor income alone reaching 776 million yuan. In some places, through planting cistanche on saxaul and processing sea buckthorn, ecological improvement has further translated into local livelihoods.

Comparison of Ant Forest Forest No. 102 planted by Jack Ma then and now Behind a tree, there have always been many people. Users participate, companies donate, professional organizations provide capability, locals plant and protect trees, and ecological results remain locally.

Each person does only a part, but ten years later, these tiny actions connected together and became something extraordinary.

This is also what "doing things like planting trees" means for a company: allowing a new idea to emerge, having the ability to make it happen, and having the patience to wait for it to grow. Planting trees is like this; running a company is also like this.

Over ten years, what Ant Forest has grown is not only 700 million trees. Those choices respecting laws and long-term investment, through repeated practice, have slowly become a company's values and methodology.

Conclusion

Each generation has its own "trees" to plant. Today, AI is making more and more things faster, but it cannot change the growth cycle of a tree.

Some problems can be accelerated by technology, but some values can only be verified by time. Ten years ago, "planting trees on phones" was still a bold dream; ten years later, what it leaves behind is not just over 700 million trees, but a set of values repeatedly verified by time: believe in ordinary people, solve real problems, and be willing to endure and spend time on things that truly matter.