What should matter in the field of conservation is what works. Here’s the good news: we have the strategy, the blueprints, and the experience. We’ve put this model into action, and we have the results to back it up.
The economic dominance of extractive industries like oil, petroleum, and mining, and deforestation from monoculture agricultural expansion and cattle-ranching have resulted in biodiversity loss, habitat fragmentation, and degradation of the health of the forests. These unsustainable practices are often due to outsiders encroaching on the lands and rights of indigenous and local peoples. Other times, local, migrant, or indigenous communities don’t have alternative ways to support their families and communities or the tools to develop more sustainable systems.
Our strategic, holistic, science-backed projects change the equation.
Tried, tested, and true– our 6-pronged model builds sustainable livelihoods that outlast and outgrow original projects, it empowers local and indigenous communities, increases populations of endangered species, strengthens conservation policies, creates and effectively manages protected areas, and leaves forests standing.
Here’s how we do it:
Community Engagement & Empowerment
The word “partnership,” is not just a catchy name for our organization. Our partners lead alongside us, as teachers, organizers, communicators, consultants– they take ownership of the project, because it is theirs; it is designed for, with, and by the community.
Our impact outlasts our direct involvement. Long-term results look like the implementation of regional action plans for endangered species, rising standards of conservation research methodology, and economic independence for women working in an artisan-crafts business.
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All of our projects stem from relationships, from real connections with community members. We build trust, respect, and understanding, which is the only way to work together as true partners. Our projects succeed because of these close relationships.
Our partnerships empower community members and leaders with the experience and tools to teach others, to expand the project, or to create new ones. This is key to ensuring that our impact is long-term, sustainable, and ever-expanding.
As a women-led organization, RP takes special care to work with women, to create opportunities for women to strengthen their economic independence and to take on leadership roles.
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Sustainable Livelihoods
We work with indigenous and local communities, as equal partners, to develop projects that generate reliable income and protect forests. Building artisan craft, agroforestry, or ecotourism businesses, for example, creates economic opportunity for communities and keeps forests standing and healthy.
We organize workshops, hold trainings, access markets to effectively sell products, and provide technical support when needed. In essence, our work is capacity building, jointly expanding communities’ tools and resources so that they have the training and connections to conserve forest homes and to benefit economically at the same time.
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Effective rainforest conservation goes hand in hand with supporting the livelihoods and rights of the communities living in the forests we work to protect. One of RP’s highest priorities is making sure that protecting forests starts with supporting the communities living there.
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Conservation Science
We perform biological assessment, publish academic research papers, create Action Plans for the protection of endangered species and critical ecosystems, and make conservation science accessible to everyone.
Research-backed conservation work results in growing populations of endangered species, strategic conservation policy and effective implementation, successful management of protected areas, the restoration of deforested areas, and healthy forest ecosystems.
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Our projects are science and data-driven, making them more effective and impactful, conserving larger areas of forest, enabling rising populations of endangered species, and ensuring better management of land and natural resources. Working with communities to generate and use conservation science strengthens their ability to manage and protect their lands.
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Biodiversity Conservation & Forest Regeneration
We restore degraded forests by implementing agroforestry and regenerative forestry projects. By collaborating with regional governments on policy plans to protect local biodiversity, establishing and managing protected areas, and creating action plans for endangered species like the yellow-tailed woolly monkey, we protect standing forests from degradation, deforestation, and biodiversity-loss.
Rainforest conservation means protecting what is left and rebuilding what was lost in the past.
While large areas of tropical forests have already been deforested or degraded, there is so much left to protect. Restoration is possible, and necessary.
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This work simultaneously strengthens local economies, forest ecosystems, biodiversity, and carbon storage. Through protection and regeneration projects, we maintain the immense diversity of tropical forests, protect large areas of primary and secondary forest, build ecological and economic resilience in rainforest communities, and combat climate change.
Tropical forests are critical carbon sinks; protecting standing forests reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and preventing deforestation keeps that carbon from being released. As we face this critical decade, it is critical to protect and rebuild rainforests’ role as crucial carbon sink and natural climate regulator.
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Conservation Management & Governance
We work with local, regional, and national governments to design, develop, advocate for, and implement conservation policies that protect rainforests and the communities living in the forests.
Establishing and managing protected areas, translating science into policy, securing legal rights for indigenous and local peoples, and unlocking the resources of local and regional governments conserves critical water sources, promotes pollination, protects endangered species, and maintains the vital role of forests as vast carbon sinks.
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Capacity-building and supporting institutional structures and processes is necessary conservation work. We work alongside governments and organizations to strengthen their ability to pass, implement, monitor, and enforce effective and smart policies in their own communities and regions. This work enables our projects to create long term and durable impact, empowers local communities, leaders, and organizations, and institutionalizes land stewardship and conservation.
To protect biodiversity, keep and grow tropical forests, and mitigate climate change, we need everyone on board. Working with governments is key to creating policy that works and conservation that lasts.
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Global Activation & Engagement
Rainforest Partnership wields the power of vast coalitions, diverse partnerships, and global engagement to support frontlines rainforest conservation work. We organize global events, campaigns, and initiatives that bring together people from all around the world around the common vision of healthy, thriving rainforests.
In 2017, we created and launched the first World Rainforest Day, an event which has since mobilized millions around the globe. Gen Z for the Trees, a youth-movement for forests initiated in 2020, leverages the energy and power of youth activism to move towards their groundbreaking goal of net-zero deforestation by 2030. Films for the Forest brings together a unique global community of artists, NGOs, educators, and audiences in support of the world’s rainforests.
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