Frequently Asked Questions

Where are your projects and why have you chosen these three specifically?

Answer: Two of the launch projects are in Brazil and one in Ecuador. The reason for choosing these areas is threefold:

1. These areas are of paramount importance for their biodiversity but are threatened by human activities such as logging, cattle ranching and clearance for agriculture etc. These threats need to be countered if the carbon in these endangered habitats is to remain locked up.
2. Their location and/or conservation helps secure tens of thousands of acres of forest behind them ensuring our sponsors are protecting far more than their own acres.
3. They are mature rainforests with uniquely high levels of biodiversity reflecting thousands of years of undisturbed growth, wildlife and species - they deserve to be left this way.

How big is an acre?

Answer: An acre is just over 40,000 square feet.

Put another way, its a car park with 200 spaces, half a football pitch or 15 tennis courts.

Traditionally, an acre is the area an ox can plough in a day (or rather a morning since refuelling took up the afternoon).

How much carbon do rainforests lock up?

Answer: Each acre of rainforest locks in more than 100 tonnes of carbon. If an acre is burnt, this results in up to 260 tonnes of carbon dioxide or CO₂ emissions.

Each year the destruction of rainforests releases more climate-warming CO₂ than the entire USA.

What does Cool Earth do?

Answer: Cool Earth is a new charity set up to protect the most endangered rainforest around the world. This combats global warming, protects ecosystems and provides sustainable jobs for local people.

Where are the rainforests?

Answer: Rainforests covers 6% of the earth's land surface. They are concentrated in tropical regions, but extend as far north as Canada and as far south as Chile. It's the tropical rainforest - in the Amazon, in Central Africa and in South East Asia - that's most at risk. Each year, 50 million acres - an area the size of Britain - are cut down, emitting around 6 billion tonnes of CO₂.

How much will it cost?

Answer: As little as £70 for an acre.

Cool Earth only focuses on the most endangered forest which is likely to be destroyed in the very near future. Generally this means it is on the leading edge of destruction.

If you can't afford an acre, sponsor half an acre or donate whatever you can. Joining Cool Earth to build a protective frontier around the rainforest is a key step to halting climate change.

What does "sponsoring" mean?

Answer: Sponsoring a piece of rainforest means contributing to the efforts of Cool Earth and its partners to secure rainforest and all the environmental services it provides such as an effective store of living carbon and a source of immense biodiversity.

Which kind of activities can be supported to manage and conserve land?

Answer: In order to protect and secure the land you sponsor, Cool Earth and its partners use a range of strategies including

• employing local rangers,
• establishing management entities and management plans,
• supporting environmentally friendly income generating activities and
• providing environmental education and awareness.

How long does sponsorship last?

Answer: In most cases forever and at least three years. Where land we are securing is already or is in the process of being classified as reserve but does not have any resources to conserve it, your sponsorship contributes to the ongoing management which Cool Earth will fund for a minimum of three years.

Aren't rainforest reserves already secure?

Answer: The forests that Cool Earth are helping to protect are at the frontier of development and most at risk. Even when such forest is granted reserve status it is sometimes still cut down for logging and ranching, as is the case with some of the projects. To provide the best protection it is essential that the forests are actively managed around the clock. In addition, to be successful protecting the land, a lot of work has to be placed in communities living around those areas, supporting the implementation of long term income generating activities and education and awareness activities. Conservation is an integration process.

What do local people get out of Cool Earth?

Answer: Conservation only works if local communities benefit. Helping to ensure that local people have better livelihoods working with rainforest protection is key to Cool Earth's success. For example, local people can be employed in monitoring and protecting the forest, and we also make sure there is full access for local people to protected areas for rubber tapping, nut and fruit extraction and other traditional trades. In the Awacachi Corridor, we are directly supporting local community people by employing them as rangers, and by improving existing and viable biodiversity friendly livelihoods, such as butterfly farming, native bamboo and aromatic cacao plantations under agroforestry systems implemented in degraded lands around the corridor. The employment we create also helps to keep communities and families together, while logging or ranching can take men hundreds of miles from their families for months on end.

How many trees are there in an acre?

Answer: On an average acre of tropical rainforest you would find;

• 45 mature hardwoods,
• 190 saplings;
• 300 species of under-storey plant
• 11,000 species of insects and worms

Its a lot to fit in which is why rainforests are the best store of carbon we have.

Why is Cool Earth only interested in rainforest?

Answer: We're not - but it's the best place to start. Tropical rainforests are one of the richest stores of terrestrial (land-based) carbon, and their protection is the most urgent task in combating climate change. In addition, rainforests play a major role in global weather systems, acting as an air conditioner for the Caribbean; they provide one fifth of the world's fresh water and oxygen; and are home to two thirds of all living species on the planet.

Aren't there lots of rainforest reserves already?

Answer: Yes there are, but in general those reserves are situated in the interior of rainforest and, as such, are at limited risk of destruction by loggers or farmers. Even more important, declaring an area as a reserve does not secure it if funding isn't available to manage and protect it. Cool Earth and its partners are all about providing support to local people and/or the legitimate management institutions for protection of rainforest by providing resources to hire rangers and establish environmentally friendly activities with local communities. We are mostly focusing on the edges of the forests, where access roads and logging certification put the trees at greatest risk. It is here that we can make the biggest difference by building a protective arm around the rainforest.

Won't protecting rainforest in one place just mean loggers go somewhere else?

Answer: Generally not. Much of the logging in South America is done speculatively where land ownership is unclear and no one else is making a claim. Furthermore, it is not particularly profitable and where better economic alternatives exist, tends not to persist. Furthermore, with many of the key markets for timber putting tighter controls on imports, the use of unsustainably logged hardwoods is being tackled more effectively at both ends of the supply chain.

Can I visit the forest I have sponsored?

Answer: You'll be able to view it constantly, using GoogleMaps. Visiting is tougher: it takes at least 20hrs to reach the Amazonian rainforest from the UK. But for some of the projects we will be looking at offering visits for exceptional fund-raisers as well as conservation placements to work alongside our teams in protecting forest.

How can you really be sure how much CO₂ is stored in an acre of forest?

Answer: You can't be sure as every acre supports a different number of species. The levels of carbon stored in soil and leaf litter can also vary. By surveying and monitoring protected forests, Cool Earth and its partners are nonetheless working to ensure the maximum amount of living carbon in mature rainforests is kept safely locked up in biomass.

The forest is huge - how do you guarantee protection?

Answer: Cool Earth is able to protect large tracts of forest by working with local partners and NGOs such as Fauna and Flora International to maximise our impact. By increasing our capacity to monitor forest cover, and by directly supporting surveillance activities through, for example, use of boats and regular treks around access points,we can help ensure that large and small scale incursions can be monitored. Most importantly of all, all of the projects, where possible, form partnerships with local people and/or communities who can earn a living from the forest resources without chopping it down. In the Awacachi Corridor, FFI and its local partner is working with implementation of agroforestry systems in degradaded community lands an as a way to provide income alternatives, food security and at the same time increase vegetal cover.

If the forest is already growing, how is this an offset?

Answer: Tropical deforestation and land use change account for around a fifth of man-made carbon emissions. In order to halt future emissions from such sources, Cool Earth only helps protect forest that is at immediate threat from destructive land uses. This means:

• land on the frontier of deforestation;
• land certified for logging, cattle ranching, palm plantation or soya cultivation; and/or
• land adjoining illegal roads.

It also means we are competing in the market with a range of other land uses and it is only by working with local communities to raise awareness of the benefits of standing forests, and by trying to pay a higher price for keeping the forest intact, that we can ensure threatened forest is protected. As such, we are setting-aside land that is not only a critical carbon store but also a repository of unique biodiversity.

Isn't this just green colonialism?

Answer: Forest conservation works best if it has the full support of local communities and governments. Cool Earth and its partners are acutely aware of this and deliberately try and structure operations to work with the grain of forest communities to ensure:

• Free and full access is given to local communities to harvest sustainable forest crops such as rubber, brazil nuts and acai berries in Cool Earth projects without reducing local people's options for development.
• For any land purchase carried out, all land title remains in the sovereign nation. For example, Cool Earth leases land on a long-term basis with land passing into reserve at the lease expiry. When land is acquired from private land owners it is put in trust by Cool Earth for local communities.
• All rangers for protection and monitoring are recruited locally with full training and social provision.

How can I be sure this isn't just a paper transaction and that forest really is protected?

Answer: Cool Earth believes that only by creating a direct link with our forest projects can sponsors feel their commitment to tackling the climate crisis is being delivered. By using high-resolution satellite imagery and/or regular biodiversity sampling and reports from local rangers, employed by Cool Earth and/or its partners, we provide reassurance that forest is being protected in your name.

Why not replant forest that's already been destroyed?

Answer: It takes 30 years to lock up a fraction of the CO₂ stored in mature forest. Restoration is an important long-term strategy but has nowhere near the carbon impact of conserving endangered mature forest. Where land we are protecting has degraded forest in it we are replanting with native species.

Who are your partners on the ground?

Answer: We work with organisations with a proven track record of community orientated conservation who share our belief that by carefully deploying sponsorship capital, we can devise a new model of environmental protection. Our principal partner on our launch projects is Fauna and Flora International. It is the world's longest-established international conservation organisation and is a registered charity. Its vision is to create a sustainable future for the planet where biodiversity is conserved by the people living closest to it.

Fauna & Flora International conserves threatened species and ecosystems worldwide. It bases its work on sound science and ensures that conservation projects take account of human needs.

Fauna & Flora International operates primarily in developing countries where there is limited capacity and resources to conserve endangered habitats and species. It has become a trusted entity in the world of conservation and today is active in over 40 countries. With the patronage of Her Majesty The Queen and supported by Vice Presidents such as Sir David Attenborough, it is tackling the global issue of biodiversity loss and climate change through investing in projects which try to halt the destruction of forests, protecting globally important wild places and helping local communities to withstand the threats posed by environmental change.