onboard.earth supports Rainforest Trust through our Trees+ programme. This established charity fulfils the ‘protection’ aspect of the programme – working to protect threatened rainforest from deforestation and keep carbon safely stored in the forest.
Rainforest Trust’s mission is to place the most threatened tropical forests under permanent protection, saving endangered wildlife through local partnerships and community engagement. Through these partnerships, they ensure sustainable results necessary for the long-term protection of tropical ecosystems and the wildlife they hold. They have been implementing their conservation model successfully for over 30 years and have protected over 38 million acres of threatened habitat.
Rainforest Trust UK is a registered British charity (No: 1169111) working in partnership with Rainforest Trust in the U.S. to protect the world’s most threatened rainforests and other tropical ecosystems. This charity enables people in the UK to donate to Rainforest Trust projects around the world and is an active supporter of the onboard.earth project.
Rainforest Protection and Climate Change
Tropical deforestation accounts for up to 15% of net global carbon emissions each year – the same as every car, truck, bus, plane, ship and train on the planet. Safeguarding existing rainforests is one of the most efficient and cost-effective ways an individual can fight climate change, as every acre safely stores over 100 tonnes of carbon that could otherwise enter the atmosphere as the greenhouse gas CO2. Studies have shown that halting tropical deforestation and allowing for regrowth could mitigate up to 50% of net global carbon emissions in the next 30 years – yet rainforests are still being cut down at a rate of 70,000 acres a day. And as well as storing billions of tonnes of carbon, the world’s rainforests produce 20% of the planet’s oxygen, stabilise global weather patterns, provide habitat for thousands of endangered species and sustain the livelihoods of millions of indigenous people. In short, we can’t really live without them. (Source: Rainforest Trust).
The positive impact of onboard.earth members’ donations:
Since 2019 donations to onboard.earth’s Trees+ programme from onboard.earth members have gone towards went towards the Rainforest Trust’s Rainforest Climate Action Fund, which supports projects that store and sequester vast quantities of carbon to help in the fight against climate change. So far protecting 21,722 acres of threatened rainforest:
The fund works with local partners to support projects in three categories:
Frontier Forests: These forests massively reduce carbon emissions in the immediate future because they protect forest in imminent danger of destruction—a so-called “frontier” providing a protective barrier, keeping dense forest intact.
Super-Sequesterers: Forests inundated by water are particularly efficient sequesterers because the water blocks the oxygen required for carbon-releasing decomposition. These include flooded forests, swamp forests, peat forests and mangroves.
Carbon Vaults: These forests lock up carbon in large, tall, intact hardwood forests in perpetuity for a reasonable cost. These large trees store vast amounts of carbon in their wood, roots and soil, preventing huge amounts of carbon from being released.
“Our partnership with onboard.earth helps events fund the protection of tropical forests which cost-effectively store and sequester vast quantities of carbon. This includes established old-growth forests; frontier forests on the edge of the deforestation line; and ecosystems known to sequester high amounts of carbon”
Rainforest Trust UK
Find out more at www.rainforesttrust.org