We accept both donations by check and via Paypal. We prefer check because Paypal charges a few percent processing fee.
Please make your check out to World Rainforest Fund, and mail it to:
World Rainforest Fund
1888 Pomar Way
Walnut Creek, California 94598-1424
We will send you a thank you email, which you can use for purposes of a tax deduction.
If you send us a check by mail, please be sure to include a note with your email address, so we can save trees and expenses by emailing you your tax-deduction thank you letter. We will not send you newsletters or constant appeals for funds. We are not a membership organization, and we believe in spending your money on saving rainforest, not a large number of mailings to you.
To donate via Paypal please click this Paypal Donate button:
Please make your check out to World Rainforest Fund, and mail it to:
World Rainforest Fund
1888 Pomar Way
Walnut Creek, California 94598-1424
We will send you a thank you email, which you can use for purposes of a tax deduction.
If you send us a check by mail, please be sure to include a note with your email address, so we can save trees and expenses by emailing you your tax-deduction thank you letter. We will not send you newsletters or constant appeals for funds. We are not a membership organization, and we believe in spending your money on saving rainforest, not a large number of mailings to you.
To donate via Paypal please click this Paypal Donate button:
The Earth is undergoing a mass extinction crisis caused by humans, and the leading cause of this extinction crisis is habitat destruction. The World Rainforest Fund works to stop this loss of biodiversity by preventing habitat destruction. We lose huge numbers of species each year. Species are going extinct at a rate that is 100 to 1,000 times greater than the normal background extinction rate (1). The renowned evolutionary biologist, Dr. Edward O. Wilson, said in 2002 that if current extinction rates continue, one half of all species on earth will be extinct in 100 years (2). Biodiversity is crucial to human welfare. Many of our medicines and industrial chemicals come from living organisms. Life stabilizes local and global climate. It holds the soil in place, preventing erosion. It is the source of our food supply. It is a source of beauty, spiritual rejuvenation, tourism, and scientific knowledge. And life has a right to exist for its own sake—we have a moral obligation not to destroy species.
We save biodiversity in ecosystems that have the vast majority of it. Rainforests are home to half the land species on earth. They are a major source of biodiversity. They have more species of animals and plants than any other terrestrial ecosystem on earth. Tropical rainforests are being destroyed at the rate of 300 acres per minute worldwide. This is equivalent to the loss of an area half the size of the state of California annually.
We preserve rainforests where they are most abundant in a continuous area, and where the preservation of them will last with the highest probability. We save rainforests in the Amazon Basin. The largest area of intact rainforest is the Amazon Basin. We sometimes have projects to save rainforests in other countries, but we focus on Brazil. The country with most rainforest is Brazil. Saving the area on earth with the most continuous rainforest will have the longest lasting effect. It is especially effective because this strategy saves the most corridors connecting areas where species live. Animals need corridors to keep their genetic diversity high enough to allow their survival. Without corridors, animal populations get isolated and undergo inbreeding, which can drive the species extinct due to lack of genetic variability.
References
1. Nepstad, D., Schwartzman, S., Bamberger, B., Santilli, M., Ray, D., Schelsinger, P., Lefebvre, P., Alencar, A., Prinz, E., Fiske, G., and Rolla, A. (February, 2006). Inhibition of Amazon Deforestation and Fire by Parks and Indigenous Lands. Conservation Biology, Volume 20, Number 1: 65-73.
2. Porter-Bolland, L., Ellis, E. A., Guariguata, M. A., Ruiz-Mallén, I., Negrete-Yankelevich, S., Reyes-García, V. (2011). Community managed forests and forest protected areas: An assessment of their conservation effectiveness across the tropics. Forest Ecology and Management. doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2011.05.034.
