Rainforest Trust
Rainforest Trust, formerly World Land Trust-US and World Parks Endowment is a US-based nonprofit environmental organization established December 8, 1988 in New York. In 2006, then World Parks Endowment affiliated itself with World Land Trust, a UK-based nonprofit environmental organization, and became World Land Trust-US, as both organizations were dedicated to minimizing their costs in order to allow donated funds to flow to real habitat conservation projects on the ground. On September 16th, 2013, as part of celebrating the organization's 25th anniversary, the World Land Trust-US changed its name to Rainforest Trust.
Rainforest Trust focuses on the purchase and protection of tropical lands that conserve threatened species, working across tropical Asia, Africa, and Latin America. For this purpose, it privately funds the purchase of large tracts of land by local NGO's for the purposes of protecting it, in a fashion similar to the Nature Conservancy by making use of land trusts. The organization also seeks to help in-situ conservation measures by providing training, capital and equipment for environmental stewardship in economically impoverished areas. Because of its cost-effectiveness and transparency, Rainforest Trust consistently receives a 4-star rating on Charity Navigator, the highest rating available
Most acres are permanently protected for an average of less than $10 per acre. Since its founding, Rainforest Trust has saved and protected nearly 11,500,000 acres (47,000 km2) of tropical rainforest lands and aims to protect 20 million acres by 2020 . A detailed map of past projects and acres purchased can be found here: https://www.rainforesttrust.org/projects/
Current President Robert S. Ridgely is an expert on neotropical birds, on which he has published several books, is a longtime conservationist, and is the co-discoverer of the jocotoco antpitta. CEO Paul Salaman is also a noted ornithologist and conservationist who has spent his life protecting the tropics. At 19 Paul discovered the choco vireo and sold the scientific naming rights for conservation purposes, raising $75,000. In 1998 Paul was a co-founder of Fundación ProAves in Colombia, one of the most effective conservation organizations in South America.
Rainforest Trust's logo depicts a jaguar. The jaguar was chosen to represent the organization because it inhabits a large portion of Latin America and is found in nearly all of the organization's project sites. Jaguars also are powerful symbols of the untamed character of rainforests.
Project examples
- Fundación de Conservación Jocotoco critical habitat protection in Ecuador,
- Fundación ProAves critical habitat protection in Colombia,
- Asociacion Armonía critical habitat protection in Bolivia,
- Reserva Ecologica de Guapiaçu (REGUA) Brazil Atlantic Rainforest protection,
- Madagasikara Voakajy critical habitat protection in Madagascar,