Rooted Together
View the case- Brand
- The Nature Conservancy
- Year
- 2022
- Objective
- Other
- Industry
- Other
- Mechanic
- Adventure & Quest
- Platform
- In-Game
Objective
Minecraft needed a way to make an unglamorous ecosystem matter to a massive audience: mangroves lock away carbon far more efficiently than rainforests, yet half the world's mangrove cover is already gone. Rather than explain that in a video, the brand built the message into a new biome introduced by The Wild Update, partnering with Xbox agency 215 McCann and The Nature Conservancy to turn the campaign into real restoration funding.
Solution
Players drop into a free Bedrock Marketplace world where a guide named Flora hands them a seed-scatter cannon that fires and instantly plants mangrove saplings across a dying coastline. A second tool, the Carbon Observer, renders visible CO2 clouds that thin out as more trees take root. As the forest fills back in, 16 animal species return one at a time, and walking up to each unlocks a short book of facts about it. Over roughly 50 minutes of planting and exploring, players watch one stretch of coast move through 50 years of recovery, from bare mudflat to a living mangrove forest.
Results
The campaign raised over $227,000 for The Nature Conservancy's mangrove restoration work, including a $200,000 direct donation from Mojang Studios.
- 1
The player finds Rooted Together, a free custom world by Everbloom Games, in the Minecraft Marketplace (Bedrock Edition) and downloads it at no cost; it supports one to four players.
- 2
The world opens on a depleted, thinned-out mangrove forest, where a guide character named Flora introduces the player to mangrove ecosystems and explains why they need restoring.
- 3
Flora hands the player a Seed Cannon, which fires seeds that instantly grow into mangrove trees on impact, and a Carbon Observer, a device that detects and visualizes CO2 clouds to show the site's current carbon level; ammunition is limited, so players gather propagule seeds from existing mangroves to reload, forming a core loop of collecting, shooting, and watching the forest grow.
- 4
As the player plants more trees, the CO2 level drops, which they track with the Carbon Observer, and every 10% reduction triggers a radio message delivering a fact about mangrove forests.
- 5
Falling CO2 also brings wildlife back to the site, and the forest visibly regrows and comes alive around the player.
- 6
Approaching any animal unlocks it and awards a book detailing that species; the world holds 16 collectible species in total, including tigers, crocodiles, and leopards among other mangrove wildlife.
- 7
Once restored, the forest is open to free exploration, including by water via custom kayaks.
- 8
A full playthrough runs about 50 minutes and compresses roughly 50 years of ecosystem recovery, taking the player from a bare shoreline to a dense, animal-filled forest.
- 9
The campaign continued beyond the map itself: in July 2022, four major Minecraft creators ran charity livestreams of Rooted Together, directing viewers to donate to a conservation nonprofit.
