Our Approach

Cool Earth works directly with communities; one of the most effective ways to halt forest destruction.

Our approach is so effective because we put people, not trees first. By partnering with rainforest communities to improve quality of life, this enables them to protect their surrounding forests from threats such as commercial logging, commercial agriculture and extractive industries.

Since 2007, Cool Earth has worked in all three rainforest biomes – the Congo Basin, Amazonia and Oceania.

Our partnerships are located on the frontline of deforestation, in countries where the threat to the forest is greatest. We grow by word of mouth, with neighbouring villages and new communities asking to work with us too. This is integral as our partnerships are driven by the communities we work with as we help put local people back in control.

Each village sets up a bank account and a Community Association to prioritise and deliver the funds to benefit all members. The community decides what they need most and how funds are spent – everything from clean water and a new classroom to improved coffee and cacao harvests.

Better health, better education, and better livelihoods all help to keep forests standing.

We invest in three key areas:

LIVELIHOOD SUPPORT

FOREST HEALTH

COMMUNITY INVESTMENTS

We know that for projects to be sustainable in the long-term, they require time and effort to establish them. So Cool Earth partners with communities for at least 7 years, this ensures that the community earns more from keeping the forest standing once Cool Earth has exited.

We want our smart approach to be copied around the world. We’re testing our model of community-led conservation, and are in the process of putting everything Cool Earth has learnt into an open source ToolBox. Communities and other organisations will be able to use all that we’ve learnt and replicate our model to save more forest.

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