Cool Earth
 |
|
| Founded | 2007 |
|---|---|
| Founders | Johan Eliasch and Frank Field |
| Type | NGO |
| Focus | Environmentalism, Conservation, Ecology |
| Location | |
|
Area served
|
Peru, Democratic Republic of Congo, Papua New Guinea |
| Method | Collaboration |
|
Key people
|
Johan Eliasch, Frank Field, Mark Ellingham, Lord Deben, Baroness Jenkin |
| Slogan | Cool Earth works alongside indigenous villages to halt rainforest destruction |
| Website | CoolEarth.org |
Cool Earth is a UK-based international NGO that protects endangered rainforest in order to combat global warming, protect ecosystems and to provide employment for local people.
The organisation receives its income through business partnerships, trust funds and individual contributions from over 50,000 sponsors in order to secure specific tracts of endangered rainforest. Through the Cool Earth website, an individual can donate to support indigenous communities to protect their rainforest. Less than 10% of Cool Earth's supporter income is spent on administration.
In 2015, it was named Charity of the Year in its category at the Civil Society Media Charity Awards and best International NGO at the PEA Awards. It is supported by various celebrities including Professor James Lovelock, Vivienne Westwood,Ricky Gervais and Sir David Attenborough.
Cool Earth was founded in 2007 by entrepreneur Johan Eliasch and MP Frank Field out of their common interest in protecting the rainforest. They argued that it was unacceptable that the 20% of carbon emissions created by tropical deforestation were ignored by the and that urgent, direct action was needed to put a stop to deforestation, lest it take up to twenty years to get an idea adopted by the political bureaucracy.
Cool Earth's ethos is that the most effective custodians of rainforests are the people who have lived there for generations as they have the most to lose from its destruction. Their approach is to work with indigenous rainforest-based communities to secure threatened rainforest that, within 18 months or less, would otherwise be sold to loggers and ranchers. The charity provides local people with the support they need to get income from the forest without cutting it down so that the forest is worth more intact. This is done by concentrating on three key areas, these are:
The provision of resources for these areas enables the building of sustainable livelihoods, better schools, better clinics and the empowerment of partner villages to monitor their forest and secure it from illegal logging. This basic model used by Cool Earth has been described as "simple but so intelligent" by the times journalist Deborah Ross. The charity is currently working alongside 118 rainforest villages in Peru, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Papua New Guinea and previously worked with communities in Brazil and Ecuador, so far helping to protect over 500,000 acres of forest. The charity argues that to be selected each project must fulfill the following criteria:
...
Wikipedia