Since 2009 we have donated towards safeguarding areas of the virgin Ashaninka rainforest of Peru through the charity, Cool Earth, who work alongside indigenous villages to halt rainforest destruction. The Ashaninka are Peru’s largest indigenous nation. They have lived in Peru’s Central Selva for thousands of years and their way of life depends entirely upon the forest.

Fourteen years ago (2003) the community of Cutivireni was 200 miles from the arc of deforestation. By 2008, the loggers were one mile away and offered hard cash for their trees. With every family below the poverty line but desperate to keep their forest standing, the village elder, Cesar Bustamante, contacted Cool Earth. Five years on not a single tree has been lost to loggers. Cool earth now work with 19 Asháninka villages in Peru’s Ene Valley.

Why save rainforest? Rainforests cover only about 6% of the world’s surface and yet contain more than two thirds of the biodiversity and absorb about half of the world’s carbon. We have now secured 20 acres of rainforest, each acre generates about 76,000 tonnes of fresh water into the global rain cycle annually. However every year deforestation puts more CO2 into the atmosphere than the entire global transport sector.

More information on Cool Earth’s good work can be found here.