Impact

We measure more than just climate impact. We measure change.

Climate impact research over the last decade shows that people who live in the rainforest have historically been the best at shaping and stewarding these ecosystems.

As part of our work, we give cash to communities directly. This is essential in the fight against deforestation in a time where indigenous peoples are excluded from climate and conservation funding altogether.

The positive impact on rainforest health when people live there is clear to see in indigenous territories. By working with indigenous peoples and local communities living in rainforest and with your support, we help to keep rainforest standing.

We measure our impact on rainforest and climate by learning from our outcomes, the small wins, and the challenges.

By doing this, we become a better organisation. Monitoring activities and evaluating our programmes helps us to understand where we are right now. How close we are to where we want to be, and how best to get there.

We would love to give detailed data on each specific tree, in each forest, in each area, and how it has been protected through our work. But in reality, the world is not that simple.

We work in remote places with diverse people, dynamic economies, and complex ecosystems. These are all constantly changing in response to the rest of the world.

Giving credit for stopping deforestation in the places we work solely to Cool Earth doesn’t do justice to the people we support.

Indigenous people and local communities have lived in rainforests for millennia.

 

Their very existence is the reason rainforest still remains intact. Our role is to make their lives easier so they can continue doing just that.

Cool Earth in Numbers

40

People-Powered Projects

From the Amazon to New Guinea to the Congo Basin, communities all over the world are fighting deforestation.

136m

Trees in our Partnerships

Trees are our greatest natural carbon-storing technology in the fight against the climate crisis.

243m

Tonnes of Carbon Stored

Carbon is being stored and kept out of the atmosphere in all of our partnerships in the Amazon, Congo and New Guinea rainforests.

Annual Reports

Our successes, our challenges, and everything in-between can be found right here in our annual reports.

Annual Reports

Researchers

At Cool Earth we are continually evaluating and learning. Part of this process is partnering with experts to improve and refine the ways we work.

Léna Prouchet

Léna Prouchet

Léna is a climate activist and a member of Generation Climate Europe.

She holds master’s degrees in international economics and Food Policy, and joined the department of Science, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship at the University of Exeter’s Business School in March 2020 where she conducts multidisciplinary research on areas including environmental issues, development and entrepreneurship.

Her PhD focuses on the creation and development of enterprises around cash crops in Cool Earth’s two Peruvian partnerships and Cool Earth’s role in them. Previous research on indigenous entrepreneurship has not looked at the roles and impact of external stakeholders such as NGOs in these endeavours. Léna seeks to address this gap and understand the impact of Cool Earth’s support for partner entrepreneurs.

Years of research have shown that the most efficient way to protect rainforests is by supporting local and indigenous communities. Léna’s research aims to understand what this support should look like to ensure it fits with local goals and desires. This has the potential to ensure the sustainability of the projects co-created and co-developed by Cool Earth and partner communities.

Callum Sheehan

Callum Sheehan

Callum works as a project manager in International Development, focusing on the intersection of community development and conservation. He holds a master’s degree in Environment and Development from the University of Leeds during which he worked with Cool Earth to research the use of cash giving for conservation.

Callum’s research surveyed professionals working in conservation in low-income country contexts, and interviewed Cool Earth staff who have experience of piloting cash giving for conservation programmes to uncover some of the risks and likely impacts of using cash giving for conservation and to establish whether it is something that should be explored further. His research found that there is an appetite within the industry for new conservation methods that give control to local communities, providing support for Cool Earth’s ongoing cash-giving programmes.

Larissa Longano de Barcellos

Larissa Longano de Barcellos

Larissa has specialised in Amerindian Anthropology and Amazonian studies since 2010, and since 2017 focused on applying her anthropological experience to partnerships between indigenous and non-indigenous actors working for forest conservation. In 2019 Cool Earth introduced Larissa to the Awajún of Urakusa, Huaracayo, and Tsutsum who she visited during research for her second Master’s thesis in which she explored their relationship with the forest and ideas for forest management and conservation.

Her research highlights the interrelated nature of Amazonian indigenous people’s relationship with the forest, environmental practices, knowledge and cosmologies and their approaches to conservation projects. Her research with these communities provided background knowledge on the relationship of the Awajún people with the forest and their ideas for conservation and forest management, as well as related cultural practices and sensitivities. Cultivating this knowledge is essential to reduce cultural misunderstandings between Cool Earth and the Awajún communities they partner with, effective and equitable partnerships, the improvement of ongoing projects and the development of future ones.

Translating my research into culturally-sensitive practical field activities will hopefully serve Cool Earth as they strive for more impact. - Léna Prouchet