Working with Rainforest Concern

Rainforest Concern is a conservation charity that works to protect threatened natural habitats , the biodiversity they contain and the indigenous people who depend on them for their survival. They work in 8 countries; Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Romania, Chile, Colombia and India, protecting vital forests and working with local organisations and communities. In the charity’s 24 years they have protected a huge 2.2 million hectares of threatened forests.

They tackle issues of deforestation and other threats to natural environments in many different ways. Through direct conservation, they are able to create protected reserves and create forest corridors. They also run programmes alongside local communities, to help educate the public on the impacts of farming and cattle ranching on forests, as well as carrying out extensive research into biodiversity in different places, working with universities across the world.

 Some of the projects they have worked on include protecting sea turtles from poaching and hunting in Costa Rica, planting trees in deforested areas and funding projects and protecting forests. They also run an acre sponsorship scheme in the UK to raise funds for these important projects, as well as raising awareness and education about the impact humans can have on the world around us. An amazing 700 British schools have supported Rainforest Concern’s work.

Some of their most recent achievements include; adding a considerable amount of land to the Neblina Reserve, a cloud forest in North West Ecuador.  A long nose stub foot toad was rediscovered near the reserve after being thought to be extinct for the past 30 years!  They also assisted their local partner, DECOIN, in its successful campaign against a proposed copper mine close to the reserve.

In Brazil the charity assisted Amazon Watch to campaign resulting in the recent cancellation of the license to built a mega-dam on the Tapajos River. In Chile they expanded the Nasampulli Araucaria Reserve in the south of the country by 250 hectares and supported Corporación Bosques de Zapallar (CBZ) in their efforts to create easements for protection of the coastal forest of Zapallar in central Chile. In Romania, with their partners, they have dramatically increased the Carpathia Wilderness Reserve by almost 5,000 hectares and have helped to lobby the government to make trophy hunting illegal and this has became law in 2016. In Costa Rica they funded the creation of a new project to protect an additional 4 kilometres of beach to the south of the Pacuare Reserve.  Known as Urpiano bearch it is  of even greater importance for the nesting of leatherback turtles. (More information on this project can be found here)

Your donation can make a huge difference to their work, helping them to continue to protect our threatened rainforests around the world through vital projects and education.

For more information, please visit the Rainforest Concern Website.