The fourteen best organizations working to save the Earth's rainforests, how to contact them, and how they accomplish their work
All are tax-exempt, 501c3 organizations. The organizations marked with an asterisk (*) have received at least one grant from the World Rainforest Fund.
Mailing Address: The Borneo Project c/o Earth Island Institute 2150 Allston Way, Suite 460 Berkeley, CA 94704
The Borneo Project brings international attention and support to community-led efforts to defend forests, sustainable livelihoods, and human rights. Protecting human rights and environmental integrity in Borneo is a critical component of the global movement for a just and peaceful world.
Since its founding the project has trained dozens of indigenous activists in community mapping, enabling communities to map areas of ancestral land claims and win legal cases and negotiations. They have supported paralegal education and mobile legal aid clinics that have helped over 200 longhouse communities hold off destructive logging and industrial plantations. The Project has coordinated over $500,000 in grants from international sources for community reforestation, organic gardening, territory demarcation, indigenous education, and other village projects.
Mission: The Borneo Project brings international attention and support to community-led efforts to defend forests, sustainable livelihoods, and human rights. They believe that protecting human rights and environmental integrity in Borneo is a critical component of the global movement for a just and peaceful world.
Goals: To support indigenous-led campaigns to secure legal land rights, and to support actions and activists to preserve indigenous land rights.
To support communities acting to preserve and conserve local ecosystems.
To support cultural conservation efforts for indigenous and forest-dependent communities in Borneo. To educate the American public about the importance of Borneo, indigenous rights, and the role of forests in climate change and biodiversity conservation.
Mailing Address: 4211 N. Fairfax Drive Arlington, VA 22203
Mission The Amazon Conservation Team partners with indigenous and other local communities to protect tropical forests and strengthen traditional culture.
Vision They see a future where healthy tropical forests and thriving local communities exist in harmonious relationship with each other, contributing to the well-being of the planet.
Values Responsibility: They believe that conservation is our moral and ethical duty. They are a part of Nature, not apart from it. Nature is our home, not our servant. Determination: They believe that effective conservation always begins on the ground, no matter what. Though they may face difficulties or danger, they do not turn back from their vision or abandon their partners. Interconnection: They believe that tropical forests and the local communities that dwell within them are interdependent parts of one whole. They work to protect and strengthen both. Trust: They succeed because we are invited to collaborate with our partners. Their relationships with the communities endure because they are built on a foundation of unqualified respect, cooperation, and reciprocity. Humility:They seek guidance, hope, and strength from their indigenous elders. They acknowledge that they may never fully understand their realities. Knowledge: They believe that the knowledge and practices of indigenous and local communities are key to conservation. They also believe that traditional knowledge and western technology can work together to manage and protect the forest and strengthen the communities. Continuity:They believe that strong traditional healers and leaders, and the transfer of their knowledge and culture to successive generations, are essential for sustaining their communities, and therefore, the forest.
Phone: (919) 627-1775 General information:[email protected] Mailing Address: 1000 Willbea Rd Durham, NC 27705, USA
They work for a world where all people have an equal chance of thriving while living and working in harmony with their natural surroundings.
Go Conscious Earth believes that the connection between the Earth and people is precious and must be treated with dignity and respect. In the Congo Basin, this means protecting and reinstating tribal land rights and helping communities protect their rainforest homes while empowering them through initiatives like clean water and education that make their lives more sustainable. Mission
Go Conscious Earth protects African rainforests and the people and animals that live there by partnering with indigenous communities to eliminate extreme poverty and cultivate sustainable practices.
Main office: Phone: 510.281.9020 Fax: 510.281-9021 Mailing address: 520 3rd Street, Suite 108 Oakland, CA 94607
Washington, DC office: Phone: 202-423-4828 Mailing address: 1101 15th St NW, 11th Floor Washington, DC 20005
Mission Amazon Watch is a nonprofit organization founded in 1996 to protect the rainforest and advance the rights of indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin. They partner with indigenous and environmental organizations in campaigns for human rights, corporate accountability and the preservation of the Amazon's ecological systems.
Vision They envision a world that honors and values cultural and biological diversity and the critical contribution of tropical rainforests to our planet's life support system. They believe that indigenous self-determination is a critical component of any successful conservation strategy for the Amazon, and see that indigenous knowledge, cultures and traditional practices contribute greatly to sustainable and equitable stewardship of Mother Earth. They strive for a world in which governments, corporations and civil society respect the collective rights of indigenous peoples to free, prior and informed consent over any activity affecting their territories and resources. They commit, in the spirit of partnership and mutual respect, to support our indigenous allies in their efforts to protect life, land, and culture in accordance with their aspirations and needs, as well as the needs of future generations.
Email:[email protected] Phone: (415) 398-4404 Mailing address: 425 Bush Street, Suite 300 San Francisco, CA 94108
Mission Rainforest Action Network preserves forests, protects the climate and upholds human rights by challenging corporate power and systemic injustice through frontline partnerships and strategic campaigns.
Vision RAN works toward a world where the rights and dignity of all communities are respected and where healthy forests, a stable climate, and wild biodiversity are protected and celebrated.
Values Fighting for people and planet: RAN is committed to doing what is necessary, not only what is considered politically feasible, to preserve rainforests, protect the climate, and uphold human rights. Respect and integrity: Their commitment to fairness and equity demands that we treat each other, fellow activists, and community partners with honesty, respect, and dignity, and that we are accountable to these relationships.
Indigenous and frontline partnerships: They are committed to working with Indigenous communities and frontline communities directly impacted by profit-driven systems of injustice.They support the leadership of these communities in working on strategic and effective solutions to protect people and the planet.
Phone: (415) 561-4522 Mailing address: Pachamama Alliance Presidio Bldg #1009 P.O. Box 29191 San Francisco, CA 94129
Vision A world that works for everyone: an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, socially just human presence on this planet—a New Dream for humanity.
Mission To empower indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest to preserve their lands and culture and, using insights gained from that work, to educate and inspire individuals everywhere to bring forth a thriving, just and sustainable world.
Purpose Pachamama Alliance, empowered by their partnership with indigenous people, is dedicated to bringing forth an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, socially just human presence on this planet.
Their unique contribution is to generate and engage people everywhere in transformational conversations and experiences consistent with this purpose. They weave together indigenous and modern worldviews such that human beings are in touch with their dignity and are ennobled by the magnificence, mystery, and opportunity of what is possible for humanity at this time. They are here to inspire and galvanize the human family to generate a critical mass of conscious commitment to a thriving, just and sustainable way of life on Earth. This is a commitment to transforming human systems and structures that separate us, and to transforming our relationships with ourselves, with one another, and with the natural world.
Offices in Berlin, London, Madrid, Milan, Paris and San Francisco
USA [email protected] Phone: (510) 858-3950 Mailing address: Survival International USA PO Box 26345 San Francisco, CA 94126
London, United Kingdom Phone: +44 (0)207 687 8700 Mailing address: Survival International 6 Charterhouse Buildings London UNITED KINGDOM
From the Amazon to the Kalahari, from the jungles of India to the Congo rainforest, we work in partnership with tribal peoples to protect their lives and land. They suffer racism, land theft, forced development and genocidal violence just because they live differently. It must stop.
They reject money from governments and shady corporations so their integrity is never compromised. They fight for tribal peoples’ survival. They stop loggers, miners, and oil companies from destroying tribal lands, lives and livelihoods across the globe. They lobby governments to recognise indigenous land rights. They document and expose the atrocities committed against tribal people and take direct action to stop them.
They give tribal peoples a platform to speak to the world. They have had over 200 victories since 1969, but their work is far from over and they need your help.
Rainforest Connection (RFCx) creates acoustic monitoring systems for those who wish to end illegal deforestation in real-time. Illegal deforestation is a gateway activity to clearing rainforest, one of the primary causes of climate change. According to the UN, up to 90% of logging in tropical rainforests is illegal.
The reason Rainforest Connection starts with a focus on stopping illegal logging is because, in case after case, they have seen first-hand that if you can protect the trees, you end up protecting everything else.
The RFCx monitoring system gives their partners the opportunity to protect key rainforest areas and respond to real-time alerts, while sharing large amounts of ecosystem data that help negotiate increased protections in these areas. In some cases, protecting the perimeter of a rainforest can actually mean protecting everything behind it.
They are dedicated to putting conservation technologies into the hands of committed partners on-the-ground to help combat the destruction of Indigenous reserves which comprise 20% of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, now increasingly targeted by illegal loggers and poachers because they are still intact.
They use recycled cell phones powered by solar energy in trees to detect illegal logging. This allows guards to arrive in 20 minutes to stop the poachers. The alternative to this, satellites to detect the logging, can take up to 2 days to get enforcement people to stop the illegal loggers.
The Nature Conservancy is a global environmental nonprofit working to create a world where people and nature can thrive. Founded at its grassroots in the United States in 1951, The Nature Conservancy has grown to become one of the most effective and wide-reaching environmental organizations in the world. Thanks to more than a million members and the dedicated efforts of our diverse staff and more than 400 scientists, they impact conservation in 72 countries across six continents. Among other things, they buy land to preserve it. This includes rainforest in tropical countries.
Mission To conserve the land and waters on which all life depends. Their vision is a world where the diversity of life thrives, and people act to conserve nature for its own sake and its ability to fulfill our needs and enrich our lives.
Tackle Climate Change Global temperatures have sharply risen over the last century, and it is clear that swift, bold action is required to avoid the increasingly severe impacts of climate change.
Protect Land and Water They have helped protect more than 119 million acres of land, countless miles of rivers and streams and the world’s largest oceans. And they plan to protect more by 2025.
Provide Food and Water Sustainably Food demand is expected to increase by more than 50 percent in just the next 30 years as the world’s population continues to grow—it’s a challenge that can be met.
Build Healthy Cities By 2050, two-thirds of people will live in cities. Thoughtful planning, smart growth and nature can generate benefits for communities, for people’s health and for the economy.
Since 1987, the Rainforest Alliance has worked to build a global alliance of people who share their vision of strong forests and thriving communities. Today, they work with rural communities in over 60 countries around the world to conserve forests, support sustainable livelihoods, and restore balance to our planet.
They work with a diverse array of people, companies, and governments to restore balance to the world's most important and vulnerable landscapes. The members of our alliance—from farmers and foresters to businesses and consumers—share a steadfast commitment to finding creative, pragmatic solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges.
Email:[email protected] Phone: (212) 431-9098 Mailing address: 1000 Dean Street, Suite 430 Brooklyn, New York, NY 11238
The Rainforest Foundation works on-the-ground to secure land rights for indigenous people. They strengthen indigenous land security and train indigenous communities to use technology to protect their forests. By investing directly in indigenous communities, they connect people who are deeply motivated to conserve their ancestral lands with the tools, training, and resources necessary to protect their rainforests.
The Rainforest Foundation always works in partnership with indigenous communities and organizations. Together, they protect their forests by securing rights to their territories, strengthening sustainable land management and monitoring their forests.
Rainforest Partnership works with local and indigenous communities to keep their trees standing. Their projects leverage the culture, knowledge, and resources of their partners to ensure happy people and healthy forests.
Phone: (800) 456-4930 Mailing address: P.O. Box 841 Warrenton, VA 20188 Physical address: 7200 Lineweaver Road Suite 100 Vint Hill, VA 20187
Rainforest Trust purchases and protects the most threatened tropical forests, saving endangered wildlife through partnerships and community engagement.
Through these highly effective partnerships, they can ensure sustainable results necessary for the long-term protection of tropical ecosystems and the wildlife they hold.
Their unique, cost-effective conservation model for protecting endangered species has been implemented successfully for over 30 years. Thanks to the generosity of our donors, the expertise of our partners and the participation of local communities across the tropics, their reserves are exemplary models of international conservation.
Phone: 0044 1235 530825 (outside the UK) Mailing address: Sumatran Orangutan Society 6 Lombard Street, Abingdon Oxfordshire, OX14 5BJ UK
Orangutans spend their lives in the trees, and deforestation is the greatest threat to their survival – so protecting and restoring their habitat is absolutely crucial. They are working with frontline partners to protect the last standing forests in Sumatra, and restore damaged ecosystems. They also back the organisations working around the clock to rescue orangutans in danger, and return them to safe forests, where they belong.