Using YouTube to plant a forest

Where are you Beau? I'm standing in front of a bunch of trees we planted a month before our eldest daughter May was born. These things aren't yet six years old. Bloody eight metre trees in a beautiful little patch of bush. They're bloody good are they? Now I've done a bunch of other plantings too. My hardest was planting fourteen hundred and forty trees in a day. That's a tree a minute for twenty four hours. Keep quality control right to the end Bodie. It was one of the hardest things I've done, but it was super rewarding. Wow, this is brilliant. I also planted a bunch whilst running a marathon. And most recently turned ten thousand bottles and cans into a future patch of roadside bush. They're doing well, they're doing well, look at you, got your heads up. Bloody rippers. But I've been meaning to do a larger project for years. I might start loading up the U. Turn this YouTube channel into a force for good. So I have an idea. Why doesn't this video become a revenue maker to buy trees? You guys watch it, it earns some money, I spend that money on trees, we have a bigger version of that. Good idea mate. Well, I don't know. I do fear I'm becoming a one trick pony. But the difference here is that YouTube advertisers are paying for the trees. And it's you that's enabling it. I tell you what else, it's tapping into the unknown. How many views, how many trees, where do we plant them, who's going to help? And I love not knowing where this thing might go. This is an open-ended bonanza based on the potential of people I've never met. The only thing I'm guided by with structure is how much money this video will likely make. Okay, so let's break this down. So far, my channel in 2025 has earned an average of $8.74 per thousand views. So let's say this video gets anywhere between say 200,000 and a million views. If it blows up, goes viral, a million views. That in money terms is somewhere between $1,748 for 200,000 views or $8,740 for a million views. Clearly then we need a timeframe. So I reckon a month. Most of my viewership happens in the first couple of weeks, right? You put it out there and you get the bulk of your views in the first couple of weeks. So let's give it a month. As soon as a month's up, cut it off. Whatever money's in the kitty, you spend on trees. Am I just another greenwashed do-gooder with a beard hugging trees? Maybe, but I do love them. They shade my gingerness and the ground from the harsh Australian sun, which means a huge array of life can go about their business. And I love trees because of their greatest product, wood. Firewood warms our house, which is made of milled timber. And I'll forever go to my wood heap to make everything from a table to a plank on my bike. Australia, believe it or not, is considered the only developed country in the world with a deforestation problem. Between 2015 and 2020, Australia cleared an average of 416,000 hectares. Now, this isn't about covering up good farmland, but about rehabilitating creeks and steep ground. In fact, that's where the tree planting bug first bit, when I took a flight over my local area, when I witnessed just how many of our creeks and rivers were bare. I thought, there's a project, mate. Get back some biodiversity in those waterways. OK, I need to call Adele now. She's my go-to nursery person. She's a total tree nut. She actually makes them. She makes the trees, or she facilitates it. She's not God, I don't think. PHONE RINGS Hi, Mo. Hello, Adele. How are you? Oh, I'm good, thank you. How many trees do we get for $8.75? Oh, blimey. So, XGST, the lowest price, is $1.75. Yep, no worries. Another 17 cents. So, we're two bucks a tree, minimum, aren't we? Yeah. So, two bucks, let's say four trees per 1,000 views. That's what I'm... I'm trying to come up with some sort of equation. OK, 1,000 views equals four trees. We've established that. 200,000 views, which is our pass mark, equals 800 trees. Boom. One million views equals 4,000 trees. We're doing all right if we get a million views, aren't we? Let's be optimists. 10 million views. I've never done that. 40,000 trees. That's a lot of fricking trees, man. One billion. Let's go for it. One billion views. HE CHUCKLES Four million trees. I think that's the math. Six zeros. Shove that up your jumper, Mr. Beast. HE CHUCKLES Holy moly. I like the look of it. You know, that's a good table. Makes sense to me. He's a busy boy. Hopefully, he'll be making some kind of bespoke furniture. Mr Miles. Mr Heath, how are you, mate? I'm all right. What's happening? Hey, look, I've got a... I've got a plan. And I need somewhere to plant a bunch more trees. HE CHUCKLES I see. My next job was finding landowners who might like some trees planted. Heath, long-time friend and owner of the paddock where I planted 1,440 trees, was the obvious candidate. On the high side along there too, absolutely. It's quite steep and almost useless for farming, so it's, uh... How many trees do you reckon, if you were to throw a number at it, how many trees do you reckon your paddock can take? It could probably take that plus some. Again, couldn't have done it any other way. Oh, that excites me. And he reckons it can take 1,500 or a couple of thousand trees. So I reckon he's the main man. And then if we need to keep going, then we've got other farmers that I'll contact. Don't call any ex-girlfriends. They don't need any trees planted on their property. I can't believe I have those numbers still hidden in my phone. They don't, actually. I don't. I don't know why I said that. They're not in my phone. Next is Dave, another old friend who recently moved onto a farm and never answers his phone. Please leave a message and I'll call you back. David, we've known each other a long time, and I know you're on acreage now, and I know that it needs some trees. At least that's what I'm hoping. He hasn't said yes, but you know what? I'm just going to turn up with 1,000 trees if need be and say, Dave, let's figure this out. Let's figure it out together. I then called my sister, who was in a war with a wombat who was killing all the native trees around their orchard. All right, how many trees would you want to put in? That the wombat killed. Um, well, my family planted, I think, 400. Jeez, that's a lot of trees. All right, well, we'll put you down for 400 native trees for your property at some stage. So, the grand total so far is 3,400 trees we have allocated. Finally, I told Helen, who would have to sign off on the concept. Now, let's say this thing really blows up. Should we plant the paddock out? I would be totally keen to do that. I would love that, yes. We currently have a triangle. You could do it all the perimeter, a thick band around the perimeter. OK, so you're the big backstop for if this thing gets beyond Heath and Jade and Dave's property. You're it. The tree's yours. OK, all right. You've got to manage it. OK, well, good. You're on board. I knew you'd be on board. And so that's good. Meeting adjourned. Meeting adjourned. Put some suncream on. OK. Look at you, just just biding your time, aren't you? You're just biding your time, you little lovelies. My simple idea might kick me in the ass. And so I'm just here to get a bit of a lay of the land. That's a thousand views, folks. That's what you're getting is your bang for buck. You think of a koala just sitting up there in this in 30 or 40 years time. An owl. Look at that real estate for an owl. Just sitting in there. You've got to plant it for that to be a future thing. Righto, over to you guys. As many eyeballs as possible. Over to the algorithm. Get as many views by August 10th. Entrepreneurs keep saying it's all about scalability. You know, you go on Shark Tank, you need to scale it. All right. Well, let's get a few more views. Scale it. Benby, I'm getting excited here. I'm starting to disturb the workers, I think.