Uwe Rosenberg’s project to plant 40,000 trees in Ghana gets backing from 18th publisher, tie-in Kickstarter game passes €20,000

Eminent German board game designer Uwe Rosenberg’s project to create a forest in the Ghanaian savannah – and provide fair employment for local people – is nearing its goal of bringing 20 board game publishers on board.

Rosenberg, the designer of games including Agricola, Patchwork and A Feast for Odin, launched the Board Game Road project in 2022 alongside sustainability business Click A Tree, with the aim of planting 40,000 trees along a rural road in the country.

Plots of land due to be turned into a forest in Ghana thanks to support from board game publishers

Rosenberg contacted Click A Tree after researching living conditions in Ghana for his 2022 board game Atiwa, which sees players developing small communities near the country’s Atiwa mountain range – partly by attracting fruit bats to act in a symbiotic relationship with farmers.

The designer has since brought on board 18 board game publisher to create the new forest in Ghana, which will provide local people with 10,000 hours of work – equivalent to 250 weeks of full-time employment – to grow, plant and care for the trees.

The project will also finance 8,000 training days in local business schools, which it estimates will provide education for about 40 people.

Lookout Spiele, the now Asmodee-owned board game publisher Rosenberg co-founded in 2000, is the 18th company to sign up to the project, following backing from businesses including Amigo, Feuerland, Hans im Glück, Skellig Games, Edition Spielwiese and Spielworxx.

Prototype components for the Click A Tree board game

Rosenberg is also hoping to raise awareness about the project through a Kickstarter project for his namesake board game design Click A Tree, which has raised more than €20,000 since launching a week ago.

The game, which is being published by Skellig Games, is a tile-laying game themed around Ghanaian farmers having to adapt to changing climate conditions by aiming to plant their crops in the shade of trees.

More than 400 people have backed the Kickstarter campaign to date. The crowdfund is scheduled to end on February 4.

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