“I felt a strong gush of pain. I couldn’t breathe, and I asked my husband what was wrong with me. I left the rainforest for the nearest hospital in an emergency evacuation. Thankfully we had a boat. With no boat, I would have died. Doctors operated on me quickly and saved my life but I lost my baby.”
Without Maria Mortiquiri and others like her, Cool Earth would not be able to save the world’s most endangered rainforests. Maria lives in the Peruvian Amazon and has the rainforest’s best interests close at heart. The trees surrounding her village provide her food to feed her family and produce to sell for an income. There’s no one better at stopping loggers from destroying trees than Maria.
That’s why the charity Cool Earth invests in making sure rainforest communities are not forced to sell trees through poverty but instead works with them to create better livelihoods and a conservation projects.
Simple equipment saves lives, which in turn has saved 330,000 acres of rainforest that would have been logged without communities protecting it.
Cool Earth’s largest rainforest project is in the Junin Province of Peru, which started when the community of Cutivireni contacted the charity after loggers approached them with a $30,000 contract. It sounded a lot to people who had very little but split amongst two thousand it was just $15 each in exchange for their livelihood and homes. The village elder understood that many people were suffering from the effects of poverty but was shrewd enough to seek an alternative and contacted a local NGO who put them in touch with Cool Earth. That was five years ago and now these communities have created a shield against logging acting as a barrier to around two million acres of pristine forest.
With your support Cool Earth;
- Works in partnership with indigenous communities.
- Only protects rainforest at imminent risk of destruction.
- Saves rainforest that is rich in biodiversity, locking in around 260 tonnes of CO2 per acre. Conserves trees that act as a barrier to a wider landscape of pristine rainforest.
- Only spends a maximum of 10% of donations on admin and governance.
To donate go to coolearth.org/save-an-acre
£10 will help Maria and other indigenous people save ten cacao trees.
£30 will save half an acre.
To donate go to coolearth.org/save-an-acre
