Rainforest Concern Review

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by

James Walters
in

Here we look at Rainforest Concern, their projects to protect threatened habitats and , and ways that you can get involved. This is part of our series on Living Sustainably.

If you already know a healthy ecosystem is essential for our lives and the lives of future generation, here are the options to help protect and enrich rainforests:

  1. Take a look at Rainforest Concern
  2. Try the Sustainability Roadmap with 40+ Solutions to Climate Change
  3. Check out #VoteWithOurMoney with 6 Steps to Help Stop Climate Change
  4. Use the Company Directory to Help You Grow, Eat, and Live Sustainably

If you want some more facts before making any decisions, let’s get into the details:

Rainforest Concern is a UK charity that was setup in 1993.

The aim of the charity is to protect threatened habitats, the biodiversity they contain, and the indigenous people who depend on them for survival.

Since 1993 Rainforest Concern Has:

  1. Helped to protect over 2.2 million hectares of threatened forest.
  2. Worked in Panama, Brazil, Colombia, Belize, Uganda, Sri Lanka, Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador, Romania, India, Suriname, Peru.
  3. And worked on over 30 conservation projects with 21 partner organisations.

As part of their conservation strategy, Rainforest Concern support local communities, and deliver environmental education.

Rainforest Concern Projects

Rainforest Concern help to preserve tropical rainforests and other threatened habitats from the rare, biodiversity-rich Andean cloud forests to the temperate rainforests of southern Chile, and from the dry forests of Peru to the last remaining wildernesses of Europe.

Here Are Some of Their Projects:

Ecuador

The Neblina Reserve

Since 2003, Rainforest Concern has purchased areas of forest to create the Neblina Reserve.

The purpose of the project is to keep extending the reserve to create an unbroken forest highway, a biological corridor, from the Mindo Reserve near Quito to the Pangan Reserve in south west Colombia.

Neblina Reserve | Rainforest Concern

Los Cedros

As well as providing emergency funds when urgent conservation action has been required, Rainforest Concern are focusing on a long-term partnership and strategy to help ensure the future sustainability of this special Reserve.

The project is about conserving this extraordinary habitat and the species who depend on it, and supporting the surrounding communities who are so important for long-term protection.

Ecuador – Los Cedros Reserve

Community Watershed Reserves

Rainforest Concern has been working with DECOIN since 2000 on different conservation initiatives.

DECOIN was founded in January 1995 as a grass-roots environmental organization to protect the cloud forests of the Intag region of northwestern Ecuador.

By enabling local communities to purchase forested land strictly for conservation, this area has a higher chance of long-term survival.

Community-led conservation and eco-tourism projects have helped to prevent a proposed copper mine from going ahead, saving the area from the destruction that typically comes as a result of toxic materials such as arsenic, lead, copper, chromium, and cadmium.

Community watershed reserves | Rainforest Concern

Colombia

Yaigojé Apaporis National Park

A hotspot for biological and cultural diversity, the National Park is a pristine wilderness, located deep in the Colombian Amazon close to the Brazilian border.

This is now the third largest national park in Colombia at around 1.1 million hectares.

After persistent mining threats, the National Park was created to further protect the forests and natural resources in the sub-soil.

The park is now managed by the indigenous communities who use their vast knowledge to preserve this area of Amazon rainforest.

Since 2008, Rainforest Concern has worked in partnership with Gaia Amazonas to obtain legal recognition of ancestral indigenous land.

Yaigoje Apaporis National Park | Rainforest Concern

Chile

Nasampulli Reserve

Located in the Andean foothills of southern-central Chile, the Nasampulli Reserve protects 1,500 hectares of threatened native araucaria forest.

It connects to another protected area of forest, the Villarrica National Reserve.

This continuous corridor of protected forest increases the mobility and survival of endemic fauna and flora, which have suffered habitat loss due to land fragmentation.

In the early 1990s this area was under serious threat from deforestation.

A ban on araucaria logging and the establishment of Rainforest Concern’s Nasampulli Reserve, in partnership with the Chilean foundation FORECOS, mean that this area of forest is now protected.

Nasampulli Reserve Chile | Rainforest Concern

El Boldo Reserve

The humid forests of the El Boldo Reserve contain an abundance of climbers, ferns, and herbaceous flowering plant species, many of which are endemic to Chile.

The dry sclerophyllous forest also contains high levels of endemism with a number of dry-stem plants.

For the last ten years, Rainforest Concern has been a partner of CBZ, Corporación Bosques de Zapallar, a local organisation dedicated to protecting this vulnerable ecosystem.

Coastal forest conservation chile | Rainforest Concern

Costa Rica

Urpiano Beach Project

Since 2016, Rainforest Concern and its Costa Rica team have run a programme to patrol Urpiano beach and protect the eggs and hatchlings during the nesting and hatching season.

Previously, Urpiano had been notorious for illegal poaching of turtle eggs—in an initial survey conducted in 2015, 100% of eggs were poached.

The great success of their work with the Pacuare Reserve saw a massive reduction in poaching of leatherback turtle eggs.

Because of this positive experience, they’ve turned their attention to Urpiano beach, immediately to the south of Pacuare.

Urpiano Beach Project | Rainforest Concern

India

Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary

This 70 acres Sanctuary is run by a small group of horticulturalists, naturalists, and educators who work to rehabilitate threatened plant species and restore habitats.

The sanctuary is home to over 2000 species of rainforest plants: From buttressed trees to epiphytes, tubers, lianas, mosses, legumes, and grasses.

Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary employs and trains women of the local, rural community, where economic opportunities are scarce.

Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary | Rainforest Concern

Peru

Dry Forest Project

Working with RBG Kew and RBG Edinburgh, Rainforest Concern have developed propagation techniques and seed banking for all the key species, and continue with support of Ingleby Farm and forests to develop species restoration techniques.

Peru – Dry Forest Project

Romania

Carpathia Reserve

The ancient forests of the Carpathian Mountains are considered one of the last European wildernesses.

The foundation’s goal is to prevent illegal logging and hunting through the purchase and protection of a significant area of Carpathian forests for future generations, with the intention to return the landholdings to the Romanian public domain in the form of a National Park.

The FCC’s conservation project has now purchased and secured protection for 21,000 hectares of Carpathian forest and its fauna and flora.

Carpathia Reserve | Rainforest Concern

Târnava Mare

The only way to protect this diverse ecosystem is to work together with local farming communities.

The project aims to improve both farmers’ productivity and habitat conservation by offering advisory services and training for farming communities, improving nature-friendly grassland management linked to economic benefits to local farmers.

Innovative marketing of their products and services helps to ensure that farmers are properly rewarded for their efforts to provide them with an incentive to continue.

Rainforest Concern – threatened mosaic farmed landscapes of lowland Transylvania

Get Involved With Rainforest Concern

There are plenty of ways that you can support Rainforest Concern.

The one that stood out to me is the opportunity to sponsor an acre of rainforest to help protect some of the most threatened and species-rich rainforest in the world, in partnership with local communities.

Other Ways To Get Involved:

  1. Subscribe to their newsletter
  2. Become a member
  3. Become a corporate member
  4. One off donation
  5. Leave a legacy
  6. Give as you earn
  7. US donations

You can find all those options on Rainforest Concern’s Ways to Donate page.

You can also follow Rainforest Concern on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Here Is What You Can Do

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Sources Used to Create This

  1. Rainforest Concern
  2. Ways to donate | Rainforest Concern

Production Notes

This was produced by me, James Walters, as a personal project to help stop climate change by inspiring others to grow, eat, and live sustainably.

Any advice given is the opinion of those involved and does not constitute medical, financial, or legal advice.

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