Since he sold the last of his Calgary restaurants a few years back, entrepreneur Dave Clarke - better known as Curly - has put down fresh roots.

Now CEO of a new public company known as Maple Leaf Reforestation (TSXV:MPE), the impresario who founded Curly's Restaurants in 1987 has turned from serving rich desserts to fighting desert conditions in a treeless and windswept region of Inner Mongolia.

Since raising $1.8 million via an initial public offering last March, Maple Leaf has confirmed its participation in a joint-venture arrangement with officials representing the Chinese county of Liang Chang.

Under terms of the contract, Maple Leaf agrees to produce 12 million hardy conifer seedlings a year in an effort to counteract chronic soil erosion in the region.

Larry MacDougal, Business Edge
Dave Clarke, CEO of Maple Leaf Restoration, shows the Jiffy pellet his company is using to combat soil erosion.

"It's part of a nationwide plan to reclaim the land, to build shelterbelts and to stop erosion," Clarke explains.

"For years, the Chinese needed every square inch of land to grow crops on. So they took the trees off the land. Now they realize there's an immediate need to do something to keep that same marginal farmland from turning into desert."

Like most born entrepreneurs, Clarke seems to have a knack for coming along at the ideal moment. He created Maple Leaf Reforestation after a Chinese business associate alerted him to a central government reforestation policy implemented by the People's Republic of China in 2003.

Intrigued, Clarke made inquiries. Eventually, he travelled to the region and, after lengthy negotiations, was able to finalize the deal with county representatives.

"They take a cautious approach ... a little more methodical than what we're used to over here," he says. "But they're catching on in a hurry."

In recognition of his own horticultural limitations, the one-time short-order cook turned to the experts for help on this side of the Pacific. He recently hired a professional grower named Mark Sandiland, who has helped to establish forested ecosystems in Toronto's Downsview Park, as well as others in Brampton and Hamilton.

Sandiland has since been posted permanently to China, where he and a team of locals broke ground on the company's first greenhouse (2.5 acres) late last week.

Once Maple Leaf's greenhouses are up and running, Sandiland's workers will start planting Jiffy Forestry pellets - prepackaged pine and spruce seedlings swaddled in compacted peat moss, which include fertilizer, sulphates and nitrates.

These patented germination machines are manufactured by Jiffy Products Ltd. of New Brunswick and Clarke has been able to wangle exclusive Chinese distribution rights for the product.

"Peat moss isn't readily available in China," the former Curly explains. "Our seedlings are sturdier and stronger than most of those available over there.

"We buy them in sheets of 288 seedlings each. They're much easier to transport because we don't have to import peat moss in bulk."

Clarke is also excited by low Chinese production costs, including an inexpensive power supply, cheap labour and a squad of willing workers eager to work as many overtime hours as required.

A self-described Ontario farmboy, Clarke moved west in 1983 and quickly found work in the restaurant business.

He started as a doorman, learned the ropes from the ground up and soon found himself (in tandem with another investor) running one of Calgary's teen hotspots.

At the company's peak, Curly's employed 250 people in three Calgary locations and was jumping most every night.

"Curly's South was really THE place to be in Calgary," Clarke recalls. "But the time came for a lifestyle change."

He sold each location in succession, doing "very well" on each transaction. Subsequently, Clarke dabbled in restaurant consultation and earned his commercial real estate licence.

But after his colleague told him about China's returning-farmland-to-forest policy, he opted to break new ground.

"I'm a businessman who puts deals together. Do I know how to grow trees? No," Clarke admits. "At Curly's, I wasn't the executive chef either."

If things go well in Liang Chang, Clarke hopes to cut similar deals with other county officials, though he cautions, "you have to walk before you can run."

In the meantime, Chinese-Canadian associates are investigating government plans to "green up" Beijing in time for the 2008 Olympic Games. Clarke believes Maple Leaf Reforestation could help to meet a rising demand for fresh landscaping in the Chinese capital.

"That's another thing I like about this business," adds the man whose old customers continue to call Curly. "We're helping the environment, we're not hurting it."

(Tom Keyser can be reached at keyser@businessedge.ca)