The GARF object-oriented environment is aimed to support the programming of fault tolerant distributed applications. It is based on a modular computational model composed of two orthogonal object hierarchies: data objects and encapsulators. Application functionalities are programmed using data objects while its fault tolerance is implemented through reusable encapsula- tors. Each data object is bound at runtime to a specific encapsulator which provides support for the desired data object fault tolerant behaviour. The paper presents the computational model, describes the encapsulator classes which support replication to achieve fault tolerance and illustrates the GARF approach on an example: the Distributed Diary Manager.